


realities long since forgotten

by concreteskies



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Gilmore Girls AU, Kara is a barista in this, and Lena is just a soft yearning idiot lesbian, basically this is just tropes galore, but i do recommend watching gilmore girls just in general, coffee shop AU, fake dating au, i hope you're ready for me to be self-indulgent and to give you the slowest burn of the century, no knowledge of the show is required
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-17
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:55:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 31,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26513287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/concreteskies/pseuds/concreteskies
Summary: In exchange for LuthorCorp, Lena agrees to have dinner with her mother every Friday. What starts out as weekly business check-ups quickly turns into a way for Lillian to set her up with eligible, wealthy (and entirely intolerable) men. Clearly the only solution is to start bringing the cute barista she keeps hanging out with as her fake date.ORThe Gilmore Girls inspired Fake Dating AU
Relationships: Kara Danvers & Lena Luthor, Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor
Comments: 170
Kudos: 498





	1. one.

_I drink too much coffee and I think of you often_

_In a city where reality has long been forgotten_

_Are you afraid? 'Cause I'm terrified_

_But you remind me that it's such a wonderful thing to love_

\- _Florence and the machine // Patricia_

The Luthor mansion isn’t any less intimidating now than it had been when she was a child. Lena’s been standing by her car for the past five minutes, sipping coffee from a takeaway cup while staring at her childhood home. It looms in front of her, dark brick stone, imposing gables and the two towers she’d found ridiculously pretentious even when she was little.

She remembers being four years old and walking up the pathway to the mansion for the first time, remembers feeling like the house could reach out and swallow her up. She had nightmares for weeks, involving houses with teeth and windows that never opened and cold, stern faces that never once smiled at her.

It still has that nightmarish quality now, 21 years later, offset against a faded grey sky. Clouds hang over everything, a grey immensity that blots out the sun. It seems fitting, she thinks without humor, that even the sky feels claustrophobic tonight.

She takes another sip of coffee and notes that there’s a slight tremble to her hand. She wonders, not for the first time, whether she’s made the right decision in agreeing to this deal.

**A month prior:**

_“You will come to dinner.”_

_Lena startles up from the contract she’d been reading and looks at her mother, sitting at the opposite end of the table. Her hands are folded in front of her, expression carefully blank, which only makes the request seem even more absurdly out of place than it already is._

_“Dinner?” Lena asks for lack of a better response._

_“Yes, every Friday,” Lillian says simply, like they are the kind of mother-daughter-duo that does this regularly. Like she expects Lena to just whip out her planner and confirm dates with her and maybe ask her whether they want to watch a movie on Tuesday while they’re at it._

_“Why?” Lena asks after a moment of incredulous silence._

_Lillian sighs. “If you’re going to take over LuthorCorp and be involved in the family business, the least you can do is make an effort to actually be a part of this family.”_

_If it had been any other day, Lena might have laughed at the notion of them being a family. Instead she continues to stare at her mother in quiet disbelief. Lillian, for her part, retains a perfect poker face and seems entirely unfazed by the absurdity of the situation. She looks back at her with an almost unnerving air of calmness and so, mostly to avoid having to look at her unblinking eyes, Lena eventually returns her attention back to the contract laid out in front of her. The contract that effectively makes her the CEO of LuthorCorp - the multi-billion dollar tech company her father had built and her brother nearly destroyed with his recent xenophobic delusions and megalomania._

_She’d been reading the fine print up until now, looking for any hidden clauses or conditions that would make her step back from the position. She hadn’t expected her mother to deliver it verbally though. She had expected a dinner invitation even less._

_“Do we have a deal?” Lillian presses at Lena’s lack of reaction._

_Lena swallows, eyes darting to the fountain pen lying next to the stack of papers. She knows it isn’t an unreasonable request, that weekly dinners are a relatively harmless condition. But it still means spending (at least) two uninterrupted hours with her mother… every week. She doesn’t know how to say hello to her mother, much less how to converse politely._

_She doesn’t know whether she even wants to run the company in the first place._

_LuthorCorp was always going to be Lex’s inheritance. She thought she might work in the labs one day, spent much of her childhood dreaming about working with her brother and saving the world. She never thought she’d have to take over as CEO at age 25 when the company effectively had the reputation of being a slaughterhouse; she’s not sure she’s really cut out for it._

_The one thing she is sure of is that she doesn’t want Lillian to take over instead._

_And then there’s that small part inside of her that still wants LuthorCorp to be a force for good. The part of her that spent hours upon hours crammed in her friend’s garage trying to find a cure for cancer and that tried to build a first aid robot when she was ten years old_ _(The part of her that wants to be good more than anything)._

_“But you’re an hour away from National City,” she argues in a last ditch effort to escape the sentence of spending every Friday having dinner with her mother._

_“So, you’ll drive,” her mother replies, raising her chin in a way that allows no further argument._

_Lena hesitates for one more second. Then she signs the papers._

It’s 6:59pm. The first Friday after the takeover.

Lena finishes the rest of her coffee in one big gulp that makes her throat burn before discarding her cup into the backseat of her car. Then she takes a long, only half-steadying breath, and walks towards the doorway, wrapping her black coat a little tighter around herself as she goes.

She reaches out for the brass doorknocker and lets it rap against the wooden door, which swings open almost upon contact. The maid that greets her seems new, an innocence in her eyes that never lasts long in the household of Lillian Luthor.

“Good evening,” she greets, “may I take your coat?”

She hands the garment off to the maid, who rushes off before Lena can even as much as thank her. She seems to almost disappear into the house, black shoes silent on the dark, marble floor. Lena remembers how important it had always been to her mother that the maids be silent and invisible. She fired more than one maid for making a sound while walking or lingering in doorways for too long.

She sighs. She’s already reminded of all the reasons she hates it here and her mother hasn’t even arrived yet.

She remains standing in the foyer, which has large, vaulted ceilings and dark wood paneling on the walls that always make it seem like the place was bearing down on her. A family portrait hangs to her side, showing off the family, sitting poised,serious and unhappy. A chandelier dangles above her, decorated with real diamonds just in case guests missed the whole we’re-super-wealthy-memo and there’s a staircase in front of her, leading up to the first-floor landing, which is where her mother appears now with a moderately happy exclamation of, “Lena. Welcome.”

She walks down, or rather, she _slides_ , hand gliding along on the railing, back straight - the goddamn debutante dream. She’s smiling in a way that Lena recognizes from fundraisers and charity events: toothy, yet highly affected and lacking any real kind of warmth. She feels a matching smile appear on her face and nearly cringes with it. It feels like a grimace. It feels Luthor.

“Hello, mother,” she says as soon as Lillian reaches her. She comes to a halt a few feet away from her and gives Lena a quick but noticeable once-over. She frowns ever so slightly and Lena has to resist the urge to reach up and smooth out non-existent kinks in her hair or to tuck down her dress. She reminds herself that this is what Lillian does: she creates doubt. And so, she remains standing perfectly still and forces herself not to flinch under Lillian’s critical eyes.

“Well,” Lillian says, sounding like Lena has somehow already managed to disappoint her at this first hurdle of their greeting, “I’ve had Claire set up for the aperitif in the drawing room. It’s through here.” She needlessly gestures down the hallway like Lena didn’t spend her entire childhood in this house.

“I’m aware.”

“Well I just assumed since you haven’t been here since Christmas, you might have forgotten,” Lillian says flippantly.

And really, this one is on her. She could and _should_ have seen that one coming. She refuses to enter into the argument, however, and silently follows her mother back into the drawing room.

They’ve called it the “drawing room” ever since she can remember. The name and décor make it seem more aristocratic than an ordinary living room, which seems just about right, since there’s no living being done here anyway. Its only function has always been to greet people and have them sit on terribly uncomfortable sofas while serving aperitifs in crystal glasses that cost more than the average person’s monthly rent.

Lena looks around the room for a moment, while heading over to one of the sofas and sitting down. Lillian has turned her back to her, fixing drinks on a little cart, which gives her enough time to take in the, entirely unchanged, appearance of the room. There are the same heavy oil paintings on the wall that used to scare her as a child, depicting scenes of war and dark landscapes. A fireplace sits to her left, unused since 1865 and heavily ornated with brocade. Several golden frames stand on the mantel, filled with photos of ancestors that still mean nothing to her. In front of the fireplace stands the chess board where she and Lex used to play endless tournaments as children. Some of the figures are still standing there, mid-game, and the sight of them makes her chest feel tight. It’s like time stands still in this room, a family left in limbo.

“So, tell me about your investment plan,” Lillian tears her out of her thoughts. She turns away from the drinks cart and heads over to the sofas. “I heard that you were looking into buying shares of Spheerical Industries?”

Lena knows that _of course_ the dinner serves the main purpose of checking up on the company, but the introduction to the inevitable checkup is still so abrupt, she nearly laughs at it.

“And I suppose you heard that completely by chance,” she says dryly, accepting the glass handed to her. She suddenly regrets not asking her driver to take her to dinner so that she could have gotten stupidly drunk on aperitifs rather than remaining sober to drive. It’s definitely one of the more crucial mistakes she’s made lately and that’s saying a lot. (Then again, she’s never been the type of person to leave her driver waiting in a parking lot for hours, so at least she’s got that going for her.)

“Oh please Lena, just because I stepped back from my position as a board member doesn’t mean I don’t still get to be involved in this company. LuthorCorp is as much my heritage as it is yours.”

Lena takes a sip from her drink and leans back ever so slightly, feet crossing at the ankles.

“Of course it is, I was merely surprised. I was under the assumption that this was a family dinner. Had I known it was business related, I would have brought some binders.”

Lillian sighs, she’s sat down on the sofa opposite Lena’s with her back straight and one leg perfectly crossed behind the other. “There’s no need to be offended, Lena. If you’re really so uncomfortable discussing LuthorCorp, you may suggest a different topic.”

Lena doesn’t have an immediate comeback for that. She’s never really spoken much to her mother, aside from dinner-time inquisitions about her grades and performance in school. There was no small talk in the Luthor Mansion, there weren’t any _how was your days_ or _do you have plans on the weekends_. She wracks her brain for something to talk about but comes to the (truly frightening) realization that there’s really nothing in her life worth talking about. She hasn’t seen any movies recently, hasn’t read any books or done anything other than lending every inch of her soul to the takeover of LuthorCorp. She could tell her about what she ate for dinner last night, she muses. She’s confident she could make a discussion of her garden salad last quite a few hours if she really tried. 

While Lena ponders this, silence continues to stretch out between them. It feels stifling, like it’s become a physical thing that presses down on them, and with every second that passes, Lena grows more and more anxious to find something to talk about. She takes a long sip of her drink and glances over at Lillian, who looks entirely unfazed by the discomfort of this situation. There’s a reason, she thinks, her father used to call her “the queen of the silent takedown.” She’s always been excellent at waiting people out, eyes cold and calm. There’s something unsettling about being looked at by her. It almost feels like a staring contest. Blink if you wish to discuss your every failure in handling the family company. Lena looks away.

“Yes, I’m planning to buy shares of Spheerical industries,” Lena breaks the silence. “I want LuthorCorp to branch out its nano-tech division and ideally delve further into advancing medical sciences.”

Lillian’s eyes gleam at Lena’s answer. Lena knows she’s lost whatever silent contest they’d been having. She knows that Lillian knows this, too. (She also knows that she’ll have to google “conversation starters for you and your emotionless mother” when she gets home.)

“Whyever would you do that?” Lillian asks and Lena sighs. They haven’t even made it to dinner yet and she can already sense the sweet, sweet sensation of regret and defeat wash over her.

It’s going to be a long evening.

* * *

The dinner, unsurprisingly, is even worse and by the time Lena finally makes it into her car and back on the highway, she feels like she’s been hollowed out. Like her mother has slowly and agonizingly dismantled her over the course of a three-hour meal.

Her hands are clutching the steering wheel so tightly it’s almost painful. Knuckles go white with the strain she has on them; still she doesn’t relent her hold. It feels good to be in control of something, however insignificant, while her mind replays every miniscule detail of her conversation with her mother.

“You need to realize that your idealism has no place in the business world, Lena.”

“Sit up straight, dear, your posture reflects poorly on your intelligence.”

She shakes her head, tries to focus on the highway and remind herself that it’s over, that she gets to go home now.

The thought might be comforting if her home consisted of more than an empty apartment and its white walls and blank spaces.

When she moved to National City a couple months ago, she’d had every intention of making this place a home. She chose an apartment with large windows so there’d be a lot of light, picked out nice bedding - soft silk in softer hues - and packed the cupboards full with food to cook from scratch. She even bought herself a cactus as a housewarming gift, went to the garden center to get succulent soil and a watering can, a nice striped pot for it to sit in. She really tried.

And yet she sleeps in her office most nights, eats whatever food her secretary puts down in front of her, and the cactus didn’t make it beyond two weeks of living with her.

It still sits on her windowsill though, decaying slowly as it waits for her to return home.

She doesn’t realize she’s crying until the highway starts to go blurry. She reaches up to try and swipe the tears away, but she can feel the way a sob climbs up her throat and knows that she’s about one step away from having a full-blown panic attack over a dead cactus. She pulls her car over almost on instinct and takes the next exit without checking where it goes. Wherever it is, it’s not National City.

A short drive later, she ends up in a town called Midvale. It’s tucked into the countryside, surrounded by forest and fields and the sign that welcomes her has a little cartoon pumpkin drawn underneath the writing that’s just tacky enough to be charming.

She pulls her car over and lets her head fall back as soon as the engines hum out. The tears come unbidden now and she’s just too tired to do anything but let them fall and stare blankly at the town outside the window.

Midvale seems to mostly consist of one large road and a town square. The buildings surrounding it look like someone cut them out of a postcard and dropped them here – quaint and colorful and unlike any place she’s ever lived in. Her eyes fall onto a café at the corner of the street. There’s a sign dangling above the door. It’s shaped like a coffee cup and reads _Kara’s_ in looping cursive. She can’t make out whether there are people still inside, but the lights are on, illuminating the place against the darkness.

She hadn’t really thought beyond getting off the road and this café feels like someone is giving her a way out, like maybe this could be her reprieve – however liminal - from this Friday night of hell. If nothing else, coffee will make her feel better.

She takes one long, steadying breath. She’ll be okay.

She quickly checks her appearance in the mirror compartment of her sun visor, touches up her face until she’s painted on a version of herself that manages to resemble the taller-than-life CEO she recently tries to embody. Then she squares her shoulders against her own reflection and opens the door.

* * *

A little bell chimes when Lena enters the café. The place is empty - some of the chairs have already been turned up and a dishwasher runs audibly in the background. The only person still occupying the space is a barista, who pops up from behind the counter at the sound of the door. She’s wearing a green flannel shirt and an apron with the Kara’s logo embroidered on the front pocket. Her blonde hair is tied up in a slightly disheveled ponytail, strands of hair having come loose and framing her face.

As soon as her eyes land on Lena, her expression turns into one of polite regret.

“Sorry, we’re actually just closing,” she says. She genuinely does sound apologetic and holds up a pink cleaning cloth as if trying to corroborate her statement with it.

“Oh.”

She really shouldn’t be surprised anymore. Of course her one reprieve from this night would close just as she was about to enter. That’s just how her life is these days.

To her mortification she can feel tears prick at her eyes though and her lips begin to feel suspiciously wobbly again. She cannot start crying in this place. There’s been a lot of low points to this night and she’s not about to add bursting into tears in front of a stranger to the mix. She bites down on her tongue instead, hard enough to make her wince.

“Yes, of course, I’m sorry.” She’s already backing away, blindingly reaching behind her for the doorknob, when the barista seems to catch on to the state she’s in and a quick look of concern flashes across her face.

“Are you okay?” she asks, eyebrows knitted with worry and cleaning momentarily forgotten.

“Yes, clearly I’m great,” Lena snaps and immediately flinches at her own tone. She knows it’s a product of her discomfort, but for a second, she can hear Lillian in her voice and she hates it. She hates the look it puts in the barista’s eyes even more though; it reminds her of the many maids she’d seen Lillian fire over the years. It reminds her of her employees at LuthorCorp shrinking away from her whenever she enters the room.

“Sorry, that was a stupid question,” the barista mumbles. She’s looking at her hands now, at the cleaning utensils scattered around the counter, anywhere but Lena’s face. 

“No, it’s just-“ Lena starts, then breaks off. She wishes she knew how to apologize, but words fail her. She shrugs kind of helplessly and tries again. “I-“

“Long night?” the barista supplies. She dares to meet her eyes again and Lena is surprised to find them shining with sympathy instead of blatant anger or frustration. It’s more than she probably deserves and she swallows hard to make herself bear it.

“You could say that,” she sighs.

She stands there for a moment, awkward and unsure of herself, hands knitted together in front of her. “I’m really sorry,” she says, hoping that her voice will convey her honesty. “I didn’t mean to snap at you; you were just being kind and I’ll just-“ she gestures to the door, “get out of your hair.”

“Wait,” the barista calls out just as Lena turns towards the door, “I just started tidying up, so if you don’t mind the chaos, you can stay for a while.” She shrugs like it’s nothing. Like it isn’t the most kindness anyone has extended to Lena in a while.

She lingers by the door for a moment, hand wrapped around the doorknob, feeling uncharacteristically unsure of herself. She’s learned to navigate social situations as the all-powerful Lena Luthor, heiress of the world’s most notorious tech conglomerate. She’s learned to exchange pleasantries and to always look perfectly poised, just aloof enough not to be approached by too many people. Now she’s standing in a doorway and doesn’t know what to do with herself.

It would help, she thinks, if she could find any sign of an ulterior motive in the eyes of the barista. She didn’t think she recognized her, but people have surprised her before with unexpected requests for favors or money, or just by taking her picture to share it on social media for a second in the limelight. Try as she might, she can’t find any of that in her eyes though. Instead she just looks kind. (Somehow that makes it worse.)

“Honestly I’m fine, I should probably be getting home and-” she trails off as she runs out of reasons to leave. Her hand tightens around the doorknob, almost as if looking for resolve. The barista tilts her head a little and smiles and whatever resolve she had been trying to scramble for turns to dust. So what if she’s too tired to ward off the comfort of this place? So what if wants to spend a couple minutes in a place that is bright and warm and smells of sugar and coffee?

“You really don’t mind?” she asks in a voice more timid than she is used to.

“I don’t,” the barista smiles. “I usually take closing hours as they come anyway.”

“And your boss is okay with that?”

“Well, since I’m my own boss I would say so,” she laughs. Lena’s confusion must show, because next thing, she points to the sign above the counter reading _Kara’s._ It’s the same sign as from outside the building, little coffee cup and looping cursive. “I’m Kara,” she clarifies. “The café is mine, so I can kind of do what I want.”

Lena thinks about her own company and how she seems to be rarely, if ever, doing what she wants. How her every move is dictated by her brother’s mistakes or her mother’s influence.

“That sounds nice,” she says.

“It is,” Kara confirms with an easy smile. “So honestly it’s fine, sit wherever you like.”

“You promise to kick me out when you’re done?”

“Absolutely.”

Lena feels strangely reassured by that and, after a quick look around, chooses a table by the window front. The café seems to consist of essentially one grand room, with a window front spanning two of the walls. Lena sits down opposite the counter, which runs along the left-side wall. There’s a large apothecary shelf behind it, showcasing all kinds of different mis-matched mugs in all different shapes and patterns. The remaining wall is almost entirely covered in photographs and shelves filled with magazines, little figurines and other kinds of memorabilia Kara must have accumulated over the years. It’s very homey, in a thoroughly charming way and Lena feels something inside her finally ease.

“So, what can I get you?” Kara asks once Lena has sat down.

“Just a coffee, black please.”

Lena notes the brief flicker of surprise on Kara’s face before it settles back on what Lena has quickly identified as her polite, customer smile.

“Sorry is it too late for coffee?” Lena asks hastily, eyes already darting around the shop for a menu or anything that could point her to something else to order. She probably does tea, right? Not that she’d know which kind to order. She’d be fine with tap water as well to be honest. 

Before she can spiral further, Kara laughs and interrupts her trail of thought. “No,” she says and reaches behind the counter for a large, red coffee mug, which she holds up for Lena to see. “Even if it might be too late for coffee by some standards, I’m not exactly in a position to judge.”

Lena smiles a little. “Guess I’m not the only one with terrible coffee habits.”

“At this point it’s less of a habit and more of a lifestyle,” Kara quips with a smirk that makes Lena laugh. It’s a short, bursting thing of a laugh and the most surprising part about it is that it feels genuine. She can feel a matching smile spread on her face and has to resist the urge to touch her fingers to it.

“So, do you want just the regular house blend or the Kara Danvers special?” Kara asks. She’s standing at the far side of the counter, holding up two, identical looking pots for her to choose from.

“The Kara Danvers special?” she asks with a skeptically raised eyebrow.

“Yes, it’s like the house blend but the coffee to water ratio is 90 to 10 and it’s brewed with a dash of cinnamon.”

“How very avant-garde of you,” Lena replies. It comes out with a slightly teasing undertone that she can’t remember ever having used before. Kara smiles at her though and so she decides that she likes it.

“It’s my favorite drink.” Kara says. “I firmly believe that every cup of coffee should taste a little bit like comfort and Christmas, even if it’s just a regular night in mid-April and you’re chucking down your third cup in a desperate attempt to stay awake long enough to finish your shift.”

Lena laughs again. “That sounds like a very specific scenario, but I think you’ve won me over.”

Kara practically beams in response. It’s different to her customer smile; it loses the carefully practiced politeness and instead splits her face open and crinkles her eyes at the edges. It’s beautiful. _She’s_ beautiful, Lena realizes.

Her cup of coffee lands in front of her a minute later. Kara has chosen another large mug for her, but this one is white with a large smiley face on one side and the words _Have a Lovely Day_ , written on the other. The mug is large enough for her to wrap both hands around it and she sighs a little as warmth seeps into her hands. The scent of coffee mixing with faint cinnamon is comforting already and when she takes her first sip, she knows that Kara wasn’t kidding. The coffee tastes like comfort and holiday spirit and Lena knows that she will savor every moment of it.

Kara leaves her to it and returns to her cleaning, humming along to the soft music wafting from the speakers. There’s something oddly comforting about it and Lena finds herself relaxing for the first time that evening.

The quiet is ultimately broken when a crashing sound from behind the counter causes Lena to startle up. It sounds like metal screeching against metal, a biting, goosebumps-eliciting sound, followed by a loud clang of metal hitting the counter.

Kara is standing behind the large espresso machine, positioned in the center of the counter, and peeks around it with a sheepish expression as Lena grimaces at the sound.

“Sorry,” she winces, “this espresso machine is just beyond difficult to clean,” she explains, while trying to get another part that seems to have gotten jammed to loosen. “It’s so old and half of the parts get stuck whenever I try to take it apart for cleaning.” There’s another screeching sound as the stuck part finally comes loose, surprising Kara and sending her stumbling backwards from the machine with comically widened eyes.

“Really? You make it look so easy though.”

Kara looks up at her, hand still wrapped around a piece of metal and lets out a startled laugh.

“I know I should probably just replace it; everyone keeps telling me so.” She places the last piece on the counter and reaches for the cleaning bucket to get to work.

“So why don’t you?”

“It used to belong to my foster parents.” Kara’s too focused on cleaning the parts in front of her to notice the way Lena’s attention snaps up at that. “Eliza, that’s my foster mother, gave it to me when I opened the café and I know it’s stupid, but I just haven’t had the heart to replace it yet.” She wipes down another part and sets it aside to dry on a towel. Lena notices how gently she touches each part of the machine, even though it’s metal. There’s an almost solemn precision to her moves and it makes Lena think about the few things she still has of her own mother, how few things she has with meaning. She wouldn’t give them away for the world either.

“I don’t think that’s stupid at all,” she says quietly. Kara looks up at her serious tone and surprise transitions into a small, genuine smile that Lena doesn’t know how to act around. She forces herself to smile back and hopes it comes across as equally genuine. Then she looks at her coffee cup again, twists it in her hands once so that the slogan is now facing her. 

“So, you’re not from around here, are you?” Kara asks after a moment of silence. Lena looks up from her coffee but keeps her hands wrapped around the cup.

“Did my liberal attitude towards your espresso machine give that away?” she asks and there’s that teasing undertone again.

Kara laughs. “No, I just would have noticed you,” She says simply and Lena’s glad that she seems to be too preoccupied with her cleaning again to notice the way she honest to god _blushes_ at the words.

“I’m from National City,” she replies eventually, causing Kara’s head to whip up as she stares at her with an expression of utter incredulity. “And you came to Midvale for coffee?”

“I was visiting my mother in Hartford and this place was sort of midway.” She tries to maintain a neutral tone, but something in her eyes must give her away, because Kara doesn’t pick up her cleaning again. Instead she looks at her, really looks at her, as if inquiring silently. Lena doesn’t meet her eyes. Instead she fiddles with the cup in her hands, twists it in slow circles, just to have something to do. She really doesn’t want to discuss her mother right now.

“So you decided to stop for a 10pm coffee in the best town in the world,” Kara says. Her tone is light, but Lena can tell that she’s giving her a deliberate out from that line of conversation and tries (she really tries) not to feel too stupidly grateful right then.

“It _is_ the most essential of coffees.”

“Oh definitely, how many times have I told my customers that coffee just doesn’t taste quite as good if it’s not consumed in the middle of the night and served with that slight premonition of ruining tomorrow.”

Lena chuckles. “You should use that as a slogan.”

“Might be a bit long, though I’m sure it would look great on a T-shirt.” She ponders this for a moment. “Or maybe _Kara’s Coffee - guaranteed to ruin your tomorrow.”_

“Sinister, I like it,” Lena laughs, then, after a moment of contemplation, she suggests, “Kara’s coffee, for all your late-night needs.”

“That sounds like I’m offering way more than just coffee,” Kara points out and Lena giggles in response. She fucking _giggles_. Apparently she’s the type of person who giggles now. Splendid.

“Kara’s Coffee – Better Latte than never!” Kara offers. The pun makes Lena groan, but still she can’t help but smile.

“That one was almost painful.”

“Made you smile though,” Kara says, looking far too pleased with herself but well….she can’t really argue there.

“I might smile, but your puns mocha me very mad,” she says with an entirely earnest expression. She has to try very hard not to preen at the delighted laugh that escapes Kara at her joke.

They go back and forth like this, spitballing slogans and coming up with increasingly stupid coffee-related puns. Time passes easily, almost imperceptibly, and eventually Kara has cleaned everything away, the espresso machine is assembled once again and every chair in the café is turned up. Lena knows, even though Kara is too nice to say so, that it’s time to leave and so she gets up and carries her mug over to the counter, where she hands it off to Kara. At closer proximity now, she can make out that her eyes are blue and that there’s a faint spatter of freckles over her nose and cheeks. She doesn’t really know what to do with that information, but files it away nonetheless.

“I should probably…“ she gestures vaguely in the direction of the door.

“Oh.” Kara follows her eyes to the door and Lena’s sure she imagines the hint of disappointment that washes over her face for a split second. “Yeah, I guess you still have a bit of a drive ahead of you.”

Lena nods. She’s going to get home for roughly midnight at this rate. A fact she’s likely going to curse the second her alarm goes off at 4am sharp. She can’t bring herself to regret it though.

“How much for the coffee?” she asks.

“Oh no, don’t worry about it, it’s on the house.”

“What, no, I- “ Lena tries to protest, but Kara interrupts her immediately. “It’s fine, honestly, you kept me company while I cleaned this place and I don’t have a register anymore anyway.” Lena is still skeptical and it must show, because Kara adds, “besides, you really looked like you needed it and there’s no prize on comfort coffee.”

“I feel like that’s a terrible business strategy.” Lena shakes her head, but Kara just shrugs, seemingly nonplussed.

“Can’t be too horrible if you’re feeling better now.”

“I do,” Lena says, softly enough that she would have worried if Kara had heard her at all, had she not rewarded her with a smile. “Thank you,” Lena adds, “I had a really nice time.”

Her words feel insufficient somehow, like they’re barely enough to convey how much this evening meant to her, but she doesn’t know what else to say and so she lets them hang between them anyway.

“Me too,” Kara replies.

“Really?” she sounds a lot more incredulous than intended and she feels her neck grow hot with embarrassment for a second.

“Don’t look so surprised, you’re easily one of the most interesting people to ever come in here.” Lena finds that rather difficult to believe. “I mean I now know that you have terrible coffee habits and love puns even though you pretend you don’t, and you still haven’t told me your name.” She accompanies the unspoken question with what can only be described as puppy eyes over the rim of her glasses.

Lena looks at her - considers her, before eventually deciding to reply. “It’s Lena.” She leaves it at that, hoping that Kara will too.

“Well it was nice meeting you, Lena,” Kara says.

“Yes,” Lena agrees and means it.

Then she leaves. She does manage to slip a 50-dollar bill into the tip jar on her way out though.

* * *

Lena would be lying if she said she didn’t think about Kara all through the next morning. She’ll chalk it up to sleep deprivation later. That and the fact that the alternative is thinking about her bottomless to do list for the day or recounting just how horrible dinner had been.

So really, it’s completely understandable that she’d rather think about Kara when she’s in line at the coffee shop, waiting for a cup of coffee that’ll taste like water compared to Kara’s. There’s a blackboard standing by the entrance with the words _I can’t fully espresso my excitement_ written in looping cursive. She thinks about the way Kara might laugh at the pun.

She arrives at work at 6am, still bleary-eyed, blinking against the bright, fluorescent lights in the lobby as she heads for the elevator. Her coffee’s gone cold rather quick - a fact she notices with a wince as she steps inside and presses the button for the top floor. That’s when she hears someone call out her name, “Lena”, and – still tired and barely lucid – reaches for the door on instinct to hold the elevator.

It turns out, because _of course it does_ , that the woman meant another Lena. A Lena who greets her with a hug and a smile as she watches the elevator doors close on the scene and the coffee in her mouth turns bitter.

She doesn’t know why she reached out in the first place. She knows that not a single person in the building would call for her to hold the door. It isn’t that the elevator is private per se, but it might as well be, since every time she steps into it, people immediately filter out, faces downcast and demure. And even in the unlikely case that someone did get past their fear of her, they’d never call her Lena. No one calls her Lena anymore. She’s always Miss Luthor or Ma’am or that Luthor woman and she’s sure to have a number of less polite names behind her back. Her mother calls her Lena occasionally, but it’s always said with enough disdain to make it sound more like an insult and less than her name.

She watches as the numbers on the elevator climb higher and thinks about the way Kara had said her name last night, thinks about the freckles on her nose, thinks about Lex and LuthorCorp weapon manufacturing and 73 people dead. She thinks about hundreds upon hundreds of unanswered calls, about reporters lurking by the front doors, about people sitting away from her in public places. Then she shakes her head.

This is why she came to National City: to rebuild the company her brother had nearly torn to shreds, she reminds herself. She didn’t come here to make friends.

And even if she’d like to pretend that she could stay last night’s Lena for a bit longer - ordinary Lena, cinnamon coffee Lena - she’s lived out this exact scenario too many times to act like her last name doesn’t matter.

She discards her coffee cup as soon as she enters her office and gets to work. It’s what she does best after all.

And so, she reaches Tuesday: Working almost non-stop, spine so rigid she feels her shoulders ache with it, voice like steel, and a constantly looming migraine she can’t seem to shake. She works through Monday night, falls asleep at her desk sometime past 4am and wakes up two hours later, a piece of paper stuck to her chin and filled with the knowledge that this is going to be a very long day.

It gets to Tuesday afternoon and she’s pretending to look at some spreadsheets, emphatically not thinking about Kara. (She’s even drinking tea in some kind of last ditch effort to get her out of her thoughts. Her secretary had looked at her like she’d lost her mind when she’d asked for a green tea. Perhaps she has. Perhaps this is going to be what pushes her over the edge and into the pit of Luthor-madness – this cup of green tea that does nothing to wake her up.)

She doesn’t quite know how she ends up googling Kara’s coffee shop. At some point she closes the spreadsheets she’d been working on and the next, she’s on a website called karascoffee.com and stares at a picture of the blonde smiling at her. She’s wearing her apron, though it must be an older picture since it’s still green rather than the black one she’d worn the other night. She has her hands on her hips in a kind of Superman pose. Her hair is down, long and wavy, and she is beaming at the camera. Her smile is so wide it fills her entire face, eyes crinkling, nose scrunching and all. Lena stares at it for a long time as if trying to commit it to memory.

She’s so preoccupied with it, she doesn’t hear the door open and her secretary enter until she’s standing right in front of her desk, audibly clearing her throat.

“Sorry, Jess, I didn’t hear you come in.”

“I could tell,” Jess smiles a little. Out of all the things that have come out of LuthorCorp so far, Jess might be her favorite. She’s had three secretaries so far, who were either too incompetent (read: didn’t know how to use Microsoft word despite their CVs stating otherwise) or rude (read: was actually working with one of Lex’s henchmen and tried to kill her on her second day) to stay with her for very long. But then, along came Jess. She completely reorganized her files within 24 hours, always gets her coffee order right and best of all, she isn’t afraid of her. Not even a little.

“I have the files you wanted,” Jess says and places a stack of papers on her desk. “And your mother is on line one.” Sure enough the red light indicating a call on hold is blinking away on her telephone.

“Thanks, Jess.”

She turns to the stack of paper, reaches for the first file, and flips it open in front of her. The red light of her phone line keeps blinking away, yet she doesn’t make a move to answer it and keeps her eyes trained on the file in front of her instead.

“This is the third time she’s called today,” Jess says, still standing in front of her desk with her hands clutched in front of her.

“Yes.”

“Are you going to answer it?”

“I actually wasn’t feeling quite so masochistic today, so probably not,” Lena replies, looking up from her file and at Jess with an inquiring look.

“Right,” Jess says, popping her tongue on the t. “It’s just that she’s been calling all morning,” she says, “and she seems to be under the impression that it’s somehow my fault you don’t answer her calls and so every time, she berates me a little more harshly and I really love working for you but unemployment is beginning to look really good right now.” Jess finally inhales after rushing out her sentence in pretty much one breath of jumbled words. She’s still clutching her hands in front of her, twisting the wedding band on her ring finger nervously and Lena feels herself flush with sympathy for the woman. She knows what it’s like to be on the receiving end of one of Lillian’s tirades. She should have never made it Jess’ obligation to deal with her mother’s moods.

“I’ll deal with it,” she says.

She watches as Jess leaves the office, not without turning around in the doorway to flash her a grateful smile, before she reaches for the phone and lifts it to her ear.

“Could you please stop harassing my secretary,” she says instead of a greeting. “She’s the only one who’s stuck so far and I can’t afford to lose her.”

“Well, I wouldn’t have to bother poor Jessica, if you hadn’t been so exceedingly difficult to reach,” her mother replies. Her tone is cold as usual and - also as usual - it makes Lena feel like she stepped into a cold puddle. “I’ve been ringing your office for the past two hours now.”

“Really, you had no felonies to plan instead?” Lena asks dryly.

“Must you be so crass all the time, Lena.”

“I was just trying to lighten the mood.”

“Well, your humor has always been rather questionable.” Her mother tsks, like Lena’s lack of situation-appropriate humor might just be her greatest shortcoming as a daughter. 

“I guess it’s a good thing I never had high aspirations for a career in comedy anyway,” Lena drawls.

Lillian sighs, a long-suffering sigh that Lena has heard a million times before and always makes her feel five years old again, having just crushed an expensive Christmas ornament.

“What did you want, mother?” Lena asks eventually, before the silence in the receiver can become unbearable.

“Can’t a mother just check in on her daughter from time to time?”

“Sure, a hypothetical mother could, but we both know that you’re not the type for casual check-ups, so please-“

“Fine,” Lillian bites out. “I wanted to discuss the recent budget cuts you made.”

Lena sighs.

The phone call is short and painful and by the end of it, it takes everything out of Lena not to slam the phone back on its station. Her head is pounding and so she reaches up to massage her temples, waiting for the Lillian-induced-headache to fade. She’d been ignoring the fact that she’ll have to go back to the mansion on Friday to sit through this torture for multiple hours - that she’ll have to go back there again and again and again. She groans. Work certainly had been a great distraction from this particular fact. ( _Kara_ had been a great distraction from this particular fact.)

Her eyes fall back on her screen then. On the website of the café still open and her cursor still hovering by Kara’s photo. Her smile still feels bigger than the frame and Lena sighs, almost in resignation to it.

She knows she’ll be going back there come next Friday. 

* * *

“Lena,” Kara exclaims as soon as she enters, “you came back!” 

Kara’s standing behind the counter, which is scattered with cleaning utensils. Her cheeks are slightly rosy, and she looks so _happy_ to see her that Lena decides right then and there that whatever happens, she’s made the right choice in coming back.

“I was in the area, so I thought I might as well stop for coffee.” She shrugs casually like she didn’t spend the entire week thinking about this exact moment. “That’s if you’re still open?”

“Not officially, but I’ll make an exception.” Kara says and winks at her. She _winks_. And it’s honestly too much for Lena to handle first thing. It’s also apparently too much for her to react to, because she tries to form a reply but gives an approximation of a laugh instead – a startled sound accentuated by the way she unnecessarily reaches to smooth her hair down. It’s embarrassing really, how easily Kara gets to her.

She decides to forego the reply and instead moves to last week’s table by the window front but is halted by Kara. “No, come sit here.” She motions to a set of stools in front of the counter. “It’ll be easier to talk to you when you’re not half-way across the room.”

There’s a moment of silence during which Lena doesn’t move. Kara must take it as rejection, because she says, “that’s if you want to talk to me, gosh I-“

“I didn’t just come back for the coffee,” Lena says to interrupt her inevitable descent into apologetic rambling. She’s already moving across the room and sits down on one of the stools, places her clutch down on the counter and offers Kara a reassuring smile. (It’s funny really. Being the one doing the reassuring. It’s almost laughable that Kara can’t tell that she came back for her.)

Kara mumbles something that sounds, “Oh okay,” in reply and smiles at her, a slight blush creeping into her cheeks. Lena finds it very endearing to watch her fumble with her glasses for a couple seconds until she catches herself and addresses her again. “So, coffee?” Kara holds up a pot with still steaming coffee.

“Please,” Lena all but sighs.

“That was a very emphatic please.”

“I did just spend the entire evening with my mother, so I really need something to combat that slightly sour taste that always lingers afterwards.”

“That bad?” Kara gives her a sympathetic smile while pouring coffee into two large coffee mugs and passing one over to her. Her mug is large and pumpkin shaped, bright orange with a dorky, cartoon face grinning on one side. She accepts it gladly.

“You know, until tonight I didn’t realize that green beans could taste like disappointment, but it only took an hour with my mother to convince me that even the side dishes were judging my life choices.”

“Well, beans are famously a tough crowd,” Kara says seriously and a startled laugh escapes Lena at her straight-faced delivery. She does choke on her coffee a little, but even the burn of hot liquid down her throat feels like balm after an evening with her mother. Kara gives her a moment to recover before continuing their conversation.

“So, you see your mother every week?”

“Yes, we have dinner every Friday.”

“Oh?”

“It’s part of a rather unfortunate deal we made,” she edges, voice stealing away behind her familiar guard. Kara doesn’t press though, just looks at her patiently and for a second Lena entertains the thought of telling her. Of letting her know her. Company, last name, and all. Then she looks down at the coffee mug in her hand, at the bright orange, kind of ridiculous mug that is somehow the sweetest thing she has ever seen. She looks back up at Kara, who chooses just that moment to blow a loose strand of hair out of her face. (Okay, maybe the mug isn’t quite the sweetest thing she has ever seen.)

“At least she served a kale salad today,” Lena says instead. Kara, bless her, takes the change of topic in stride and doesn’t react to it much at all aside from wrinkling her nose at Lena’s kale-comment.

“Must have been a tough evening if kale is held as the saving grace.”

Lena sighs. “You don’t know the half of it.”

Kara looks at her expectantly. She’s busy folding menus and stacking them on a pile next to her and she seems genuinely eager to hear about her evening. Lena supposes there’s nothing wrong with telling her about dinner or her mother. There’s plenty she can tell her without giving herself away. It only takes her a split second and some Kara-Danvers-puppy-eyes to decide.

“One of the maids trembled today while she was serving the main course – no doubt because she was absolutely frightened out of her mind by the fact that my mother had just sent the meal back four times because the temperature wasn’t _just_ right - and she fired her, right there on the spot.”

Kara shoots her a look of absolute incredulity that definitely makes the whole storytelling decision worth it already. Oh the Luthor stories she has to tell.

“For a tremble?” Kara asks, voice slightly pitched with disbelief.

“Yes, it is no sign of good service,” she accompanies the statement with air quotes to mark the verbatim reasoning her mother had given her earlier when she had asked a similarly disbelieving question.

“Geez, I think I’m running my business the wrong way.”

“As long as you do the exact opposite of what my mother is doing, I think you’re fine.”

Kara grins a little. She finished her pile of menus and has stacked them away under the counter. She brings out a small laundry basket of dish towels next, plops them out on the counter and starts folding them.

“What else happened?” she asks.

And so, Lena tells her. She tells her about dinner and the way Lillian’s eyes never cease to watch her critically. How she’s always ready to pounce on every slight imperfection. Her elbows too low, too high, her fork not laying in her hand perfectly enough, her pinky not quite in the right place.

She tells her about the dessert Lillian served in outrageously expensive (and ugly) crystal bowls and how she had nearly lost her mind when she heard Lena’s spoon scrape at the bottom.

She tells her how her mother had discussed funeral arrangements for a family member that hasn’t died yet. How she had discussed their will and inheritance orders and whatnot for long enough to make even Lena think that it was a bit morbid.

She tells her everything safe for company-related topics, which are much easier to steer around than she previously thought.

Throughout her detailed account of a typical Luthor dinner, Kara cleans the counter and the machinery behind, loads and unloads the dishwasher, and places all the coffee mugs in their dedicated slot in the apothecary shelf. She always looks up when Lena tells her an especially outrageous comment her mother had made or some detail of the evening that is too ludicrous to believe. She always reacts with the exact right amount of confusion or outrage and it’s nice to see that Lena isn’t merely overreacting in these situations but that they are truly as horrible as she perceives them to be.

Sometimes Kara has to stop cleaning to laugh at more ridiculous parts or to give Lena a look of utter incredulity. That’s one thing Lena quickly learns about Kara: she is very expressive with her emotions – something that is as foreign to her as anything else in this café. She’d grown up learning how to hide her feelings, how to always wear the perfect poker face. It’s almost unsettling to see Kara wear her emotions on her sleeve, to see her gasp and the way her eyes widen. She quickly becomes obsessed with it though, starts to pause before getting to the punch line just to savor Kara’s reaction to it.

Her favorite part might be that Kara laughs easily. It’s a carefree kind of laugh that seems to come as naturally to her as anything and Lena delights in it every single time. There’s something about knowing that she was able to put that laugh there, that she was the one who managed to elicit it. She wants to do it again and again and again.

Lena can’t remember having ever spoken for this long, but Kara doesn’t seem to get bored of it. She always follows up with more questions, asking for more details or clarifications. Though she never pushes and somehow always manages to give Lena an out when she doesn’t want to recount a particular fact.

It’s so easy. It’s almost scary how easy it is and so the night passes with coffee and stories and smiles that come with increasing ease even to her. It’s already past midnight when it finally draws to a close – albeit with great reluctance on both ends. The café is cleaned though, chairs put up, floors wiped, and every surface so spotless that even her mother could not possibly find a flaw anymore.

“So,” Kara draws out the sound and purses her lips at the end. Lena can tell she’s shuffling with her feet behind the counter, hears her clicking the toes of her shoes together. “You’ll come back next week?” she asks. She pushes her glasses up with her index finger and refuses to look at Lena directly and Lena flushes as warmth spreads all the way through her when she realizes that Kara is nervous – She’s nervous about asking her.

“Yes,” she says quickly. Maybe embarrassingly quickly, though she’s not about to question it. Especially not when Kara smiles at her in response. The eye crinkle smile, the one she gets whenever she’s genuinely excited about something. Whenever Kara smiles at her like that, she has to resist the urge to turn around and check whether someone else is standing behind her, someone that would make a more worthy recipient of that smile. But it’s all for Lena, however difficult it may be to believe.

“Good,” Kara says, and Lena knows she means it.

Lena reaches for her wallet then and starts to open it. “Oh, absolutely not,” Kara says, stopping her in her tracks.

“Excuse me?” Lena asks.

“Don’t think I don’t know who left the absolutely ludicrous 50-dollar tip last week.”

“You didn’t let me pay.” Lena sounds incredibly accusatory even to her own ears and she cringes a little at the sound of it.

“Well I do apologize for the inconvenience,” Kara laughs. Lena laughs as well, but it comes out forced and airy and she looks down at her wallet for a moment as she becomes aware of just how out of her depth she is in this situation. Most of her relationships (okay, all of her relationships) have only ever been transactional - her money and connections a means to a certain amount of politeness and kindness. She doesn’t really know where to go from here.

“I haven’t had much practice with this,” she admits quietly.

“Free drinks?” Kara asks.

Kindness, Lena thinks. But out loud she says, “Any of this,” hoping it’s just evasive enough not to make her look like some sob case while still being true enough to make Kara understand.

“Well, you’ll have to work on it, because there’s no way I’m letting you pay,” Kara says. Her tone is jokey, but she undoubtedly means it.

Part of her wants to fight her, to throw some money at her and make a run for it. But a bigger part of her wants to try and see where this goes. Who she can be separate from her wealth. She’d very much like to try.

And so, she gets up and heads towards the doorway, hovers there for a moment, awkward and unwilling to leave, and turns back. She’s holding the door open with one hand, half outside in the darkness, half inside the café.

She hesitates a moment before she calls, “Kara?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you.”

* * *

They slip into this routine easily from here. So easily that Lena wouldn’t be able to tell you later when they went from being strangers to being friends. Drinking coffee at Kara’s just becomes part of her week, like the dreadful dinner and the Wednesday meeting with her investors. Unlike those two, she actually looks forward to Friday nights with Kara though. She looks forward to them a lot.

It’s not even that they’re doing anything special. They’ll mostly drink their nightly cup of cinnamon coffee from increasingly larger mugs and make fun of each other for their caffeine consumption. Lena will sit on the bar stools and watch her clean her appliances and restock the cupboards. At some stage or other Kara will complain about the coffee machine and Lena will suppress a smile whenever she swears, using words such as “golly” and “fiddlesticks”.

The best part is that whenever she enters, Kara’s face lights up and she greets her with some version of “so what happened today” or “what did Lillian do this time”. Lena has long since stopped overthinking how much her chest swells with it every time. Every Friday, it’s like their conversation has never stopped and they just pick up where they left off. It’s the knowledge that at the end of each Friday night dinner someone is waiting for her and wants to know about her day. That in the end, someone will be happy to see her.

She always tells Kara about the dinners, careful to avoid any mention of her company or last name and steering clear of any potentially upsetting subjects, but it’s enough. It’s enough to hear Kara laugh at her Lillian impersonations and to see her outrage at a particularly nasty thing her mother said this time. It’s enough just to be known as Lena here. Lena with the horrible mother, who drinks coffee at midnight and gets to make Kara laugh. (It’s enough for her.)

They exchange phone numbers one day, Kara looking stupidly nervous to ask her, playing with the strings of her apron and eventually mustering up the courage to ask her whether she could possibly, perchance have her number. Like Lena would know how to say no to her. She gives it to her. Obviously. Her private number. The one that only her secretary really knows, so that she can reach her whenever she can’t bear to look at her business phone. Kara starts texting her afterwards. The occasional picture of something she baked for the café or a coffee pun that made her laugh. Sometimes it’s just a random 3pm text to ask how her day is going and every time it makes her glow.

They settle into this routine so easily that when Kara one day makes a throwaway comment about them being friends, Lena almost startles with the realization that they are. She’s never really done much of this. Friends and routines and _see you next week_. And she doesn’t know how she ended up in this place, sitting in a small café while Kara is cleaning plates, wearing her apron tied around her neck like a cape, already on the next subject while Lena’s mind still replays the word “friend” over and over again.

So no, they don’t do anything special. But maybe that’s the point.

When she arrives at the cafe this Friday, there’s a note stuck to the door. It’s scribbled on the back of a receipt and secured with two strips of tape. It’s difficult to read with the print of the receipt shining through against the light from the café, but when she steps closer, she’s able to make out the words.

_Lena: I’m just taking out the trash, will be back in a minute. You can go inside, there’s coffee in the pot._

_Everyone else: We’re closed._

It reads in Kara’s surprisingly neat handwriting. Lena smiles and reads it twice, then she reaches out to peel it off the door, carefully folds the tape back to create a clean edge and slips it into her wallet as a small keepsake. Then she steps inside the café.

She’s never been inside without Kara and it feels weirdly empty somehow. Like this place only comes to life with Kara in it. It’s even weirder to step behind the counter though. She’s never really crossed that boundary before and she feels acutely out of place as she reaches for her favorite red mug and pours herself some coffee. She doesn’t sit down yet. Sitting at the counter without Kara feels too foreign right now and so she wanders along the back wall of the café, the one that’s taken up almost entirely by blue shelves that touch the ceiling. They’re filled with magazines, pictures and other nick-nacks Kara has collected over the years and that Lena’s never really had much of a chance to look at until now.

She moves along the shelves slowly, sipping coffee as she goes and finally lingers in front of a photograph. It’s tucked into a brass frame and shows Kara and a woman with red hair beaming into the camera. Their arms are slung around each other and both of them are smiling widely into the camera. She lets her attention linger on that photograph for a moment and only turns around when the bell chimes behind her and announces Kara entering the café.

Kara’s face lights up immediately when she sees Lena. That, specifically, is something she still hasn’t gotten used to, even after months of coming here. She’s so used to people looking at the floor whenever they encounter her, to see the way they scuttle away and hope she doesn’t approach them. On the other end of the spectrum there’s business people glaring at her, immediately checking her for any sign of weakness. And then there’s Kara. Kara who beams at her whenever she sees her. Every time. Without fail.

“I see you found the coffee,” Kara says instead of a greeting.

“Yes, was that okay?”

“Yeah of course.” She laughs, “I wouldn’t want to keep you from your 10pm coffee.”

“It’s the most important coffee of the week,” Lena says as a joke…even though it isn’t.

Kara smiles and moves to sidle up next to her. “You’re looking at the pictures?”

“Yes, I can’t believe I’ve never seen them before.” Lena returns her attention to the shelf and tilts her head a little. She shifts the mug into one hand, freeing the other to point at the picture in the brass frame. “Is that Alex?”

“Yes,” Kara says. Her voice is undeniably fond even just looking at her sister. “Eliza took this the day I opened the café.”

“You look really happy.”

“I was,” Kara says simply. There’s more pictures, tucked into the corners of the shelves. Some of them are placed in frames, others are tacked to the wall or suspended on strings and attached with little pegs. They show various scenes of Kara hanging out with her friends or her family. Some of them seem to have been taken inside the café and show people sitting at the tables, grinning with a cup of coffee.

“They’re really nice pictures,” Lena says.

“Yes, you can never mention that around Eliza tough,” Kara laughs, “she has photo albums with roughly 1000 pictures worth of Alex and me growing up and she will make you look through all of them at even the slightest hint of interest.”

Lena laughs and shakes her head fondly. “That’s nice though. I wish I had more photos of happy memories to look through.”

(She wishes she had more happy memories, too. Memories she could stack in photo albums and return to on gloomy days. It seems like a great comfort somehow.)

“I take it Lillian wasn’t big on photos when you were little?”

“No.” Lena shakes her head. “We were more of an oil painting family ourselves, you know, full 80 inch canvas, because we clearly have some delusions of aristocratic grandeur to resolve.”

“I can’t tell if you’re joking,” Kara admits.

“I wish I was.” Lena chuckles a little. “We still have that family portrait up in the foyer. It glares at you whenever you enter and reminds you that we’re better than you.” She thinks about the painting for a second, the dark background. The serious family portrayed. She’s always hated it. “Come to think of it, I think it was the first family activity Lillian had us do together once the adoption went through, because, you know, nothing says family bonding than sticking a 4-year-old in a 17th century brocade dress and to then not talk to her for four hours while sitting still.” She takes a sip of coffee. “But I guess if anything it was a perfect introduction to my life in the mansion with Lillian as a mother.”

Kara is quiet for a moment and Lena wonders, as she always wonders, whether she’s said too much. Whether one day Kara is just going to be too freaked out by one of her stories.

“You’re adopted too?” Kara asks then. It’s not really the question she had expected to follow her story. She’s gotten so used to people already knowing every single detail of her upbringing and biography from the start that it never really occurred to her to mention her adoption before. Kara seems excited by it though; to learn this about her, to share this with her.

“Yes,” she replies, “Though Lillian did try to keep that particular fact very much under wraps.” She chuckles without humor. “We wouldn’t want Lionel’s illegitimate daughter to tarnish the family’s stellar reputation.”

Kara grows serious at that and Lena notices the crinkle on her forehead that always appears whenever she’s upset or worried about something. It makes her chest feel tight to see it there because of her. _For_ her.

“I’m so sorry, Lena,” Kara says. From anyone the words would seem empty, but Lena knows she means it.

“It’s okay.” Lena tries to shrug it off. “I may not have any happy photographs, but I did rip my fancy dress while sliding down the bannister right before the picture was being painted.” She laughs a little at the memory of Lillian throwing a complete fit in the hallway about it. “Lillian spent ages draping it just right, but if you look closely, you can still make out the tear. How something about it doesn’t quite fit.”

Kara grins as well. “It’s the small acts of defiance.”

“Exactly.”

“And you know, the whole picture thing is easy to fix,” Kara says, reaching for her back pocket and producing her phone.

“Oh no.”

“Oh yes,” Kara counters, “I still need a profile picture for your contact anyway, come on.” And with that she steps closer to Lena, flicks open the selfie camera and holds the phone an arm’s length away to get a good picture. Suddenly their faces are smushed very close together and Lena can feel the way her heart starts to beat out of her chest at the sudden proximity. She tries not to let it distract her too much though, tries to smile when Kara tells her to, while she’s taking pictures in rapid succession. Kara is changing her poses up a bit, alternating goofy expressions with bright smiles and throughout it all, Lena looks at her on the phone screen and smiles.

“There we go,” Kara says contentedly once she has taken enough pictures for her liking. Lena watches as she opens her contacts and saves the picture under her name. She manages to sneak a glance at her phone as she does so and finds that she’s saved as Lena with a heart and a coffee cup emoji next to her name. She looks away quickly, but the knowledge of it still makes her smile.

“There, I sent it to you, too,” Kara says before she puts her phone into her back pocket. Then she turns to walk back towards the counter, looking over her shoulder to ask, “so what happened at dinner?” And Lena follows her, sits down on her usual stool, and starts telling her.

Later that night, when Lena gets back into her car, she opens her phone and looks at the picture Kara had sent her. She accompanied it with a single red heart emoji and Lena takes a long time to look at it. Their cheeks are close together, almost touching, and she can feel her face burn with it, even hours later. Kara’s face is warm and open with happiness. She beams straight into the camera, nose slightly scrunched and eyes crinkling. She, herself, is smiling a softer smile, though it is no less genuine. Her eyes found Kara’s instead of looking at the camera though.

And she thinks that she likes being this Lena. The Lena Kara has saved in her phone. Lena no-last-name. Lena with a heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello and welcome to whatever this is. First of all, I'd like to say that they do end up fake dating in chapter 2, but the coffee shop aspect of their relationship kind of ran away from me a little bit... I enjoyed writing it too much to stop though, so I hope y'all can cope with it.  
> Secondly, thank you so much for reading, I hope you liked it and would love to hear your thoughts.  
> I'm also on twitter (concreteskies) and tumblr (dancingontiptoes).
> 
> PS Thank you so much, Wendy, for reading this over for me!


	2. two.

“I think this might be my favorite one yet,” Lena says around a mouthful of pie. She’s sitting on a stool on her side of the counter, her heels kicked off somewhere underneath and her jacket thrown haphazardly across a nearby chair. Kara’s leaning over the counter with her arms propped up at the elbows. 

It’s dark outside, reflections of the light dancing in the blacked-out windows. Despite the late hour, there are two cups of coffee, the faint scent of cinnamon in the air. It’s an ordinary sight so far, were it not for the nine dishes of blueberry pie that cover the counter between them, some of them still steaming, each of them adorned with a little tag on which Kara has listed the ingredients.

“So, do you think this is the one for the café?” Kara asks, watching Lena as she takes another bite of pie.

“I haven’t even tasted all of the pies yet, Kara,” she laughs, “you’re surprisingly impatient for a woman who baked nine pies to taste test.”

“I just like to be thorough.”

“Well, so do I, so stop rushing me and let me work my spreadsheet magic.” She points at the piece of paper she’s currently writing on. Indeed, it is a spreadsheet. For pie. She’s created different categories such as taste, consistency, and appearance and has cross-referenced them between pies, so that by the end of the night, they will hopefully end up with a conclusive answer to Kara’s dilemma. 

It’s a little over the top but considering her limited pie experience (no such thing as pie in the Luthor household, lest people believe them to be ‘common’), spreadsheets were really all she could contribute to this endeavor. Kara smiles at her whenever she consults the sheet though, so she thinks that, just this once, her background in business might not be the worst thing in the world.

“Here’s to being thorough then,” Kara says, digging her fork into the pie again and taking a generous bite. Lena smiles and follows her, toasts her fork to Kara as one might a glass of champagne before putting it to her mouth. 

There’s something oddly tender about this, eating pie from the same dish. Their forks clinking together every so often. The sweet burst of blueberry in her mouth. The way Kara looks at her after every bite like she genuinely cares what she thinks. Like Lena’s opinion is the only one that will matter. 

It’s stupid really how choked up she feels about something as mundane as being included in a pie decision, especially since she’s asked her opinion between 100 and 100.000 times at LuthorCorp every day. But she’s never had anything like this: a friend asking her opinion purely for the sake of hearing it. And so her chest continues to swell whenever Kara explains her baking process or watches her, hands twiddling, as she takes her first bite.

“I think I will give it a 10/10 for taste,” Lena says, “I love the way the ginger cuts through the sweetness of the pie.”

Kara watches as she adds it to the spreadsheet and grins with a soft shake of her head.

“What?” Lena asks.

“Nothing.” Kara’s grin widens. “I just didn’t realize that you were so well-versed in the culinary lingo.”

Lena laughs a little. “I spent a lot of time in the kitchens as a kid.”

“Oh?” Kara sets her fork down and looks at her, delighted to have discovered this new facet of her life. And Lena is just about to open her mouth to tell her about her childhood kitchen adventures, when the door flies open. 

Lena turns around to see a man standing in the doorframe. The lighting of the café casts him into a shadowed silhouette against the backdrop of the night, the bell above him chiming wildly with his energetic entrance.

“Sorry, I forgot my charger,” the man says instead of a greeting. He steps forward and into the light and Lena can make out a man of average build. He’s wearing a plaid shirt (is this some kind of Midvale uniform?), a backwards-facing baseball cap, and an absolutely shit-eating smile. “I didn’t mean to interrupt all the important cleaning you’re doing Fridays nowadays,” he directs that last part at Kara and his grin widens impossibly. In her peripheral vision, Lena sees the way it makes Kara blush ever so slightly even as she rolls her eyes at him.

“Don’t mind him,” Kara says, “this is Winn, he works here.”

“Wow, 15 years of friendship and I’m relegated to coworker.”

Kara rolls her eyes fondly. “Fine,” she says, “this is Winn, my best friend, the apple of my eye, and the reason the sun shines every day.”

Winn gives her a wide, satisfied smile.

“Anyway,” Kara continues, “Winn this is-” but before she can finish her round of introductions, Lena sees the way Winn’s eyes widen once they take her in properly. There’s a double take. Then a triple take. And Lena knows what’s coming before he even starts to speak.

“Oh my god,” he exclaims, “you could have told us that your Friday night mystery woman is Lena Luthor.”

And just like that, everything starts to go very, very cold inside of her. She watches as Kara’s eyebrows furrow, the way she turns to look at her in confusion. Lena’s stomach lurches and she suddenly feels like her heart is hurtling down a flight of stairs.

“Excuse me?” Kara asks.

“You know how interested I am in LuthorCorp’s new tech,” Winn complains, clearly oblivious to Kara’s confusion or the fact that Lena has gone even paler and looks about one second away from hyperventilating.

He barely seems to acknowledge them as he delves into a rant about LuthorCorp’s achievements and long-term goals. On an ordinary day Lena might have been surprised by how upbeat he sounds about it all, by the barely concealed reverence in his tone. But it’s not an ordinary day, because Kara’s still just standing there, looking utterly shell-shocked, eyes darting between Lena and Winn, trying to match up Winn’s words with the person sitting in front of her. Lena can see it happen, how this version of herself is rewritten by her family’s name, this palimpsest in motion.

“And the other day I read about their nano tech division and – why are you looking at me like this?” Winn finally breaks off. He looks between Lena, who looks like she can’t decide whether to throw up or pass out, and Kara, who looks like a mixture of shock and utter confusion.

“Oh,” he says as realization finally dawns on him. His jaw clamps shut and he looks between the two of them one more time, his hand coming up to touch the back of his neck. “You didn’t know.” 

He takes a step back. “You know what, I don’t really need my charger.” He reaches back for the door, fumbles with it for a painful amount of time. “Just for the record, I’m a big fan,” he addresses Lena with an almost apologetic expression on his face. “I’d really love the chance to talk to you more, but I guess this isn’t the right moment to bring up nano technologies—“ he looks at Kara, who shakes her head in confirmation, making Lena’s heart sink even further.

“Great,” Winn says, accentuating the _t._ He gives her an awkward thumbs up before he all but darts out of the door. The bell chimes to mark his exit and then there is only silence, hanging between them.

Lena forces herself to turn around again, faces the counter, looks at her hands on the tabletop, at her cup of coffee and the fork that’s still propped up against the pie dish — anywhere but Kara. Where does she even begin to explain any of this? The lies. Her name. Her company. God _her family._

“You own LuthorCorp?” Kara finally breaks the silence. Her tone is gentle. Much more gentle than Lena would have expected.

“Yes,” it comes out voiceless and so she clears her throat and repeats, “yes.”

“Well no wonder you’re drinking coffee in the middle of the night,” Kara says. It’s the last thing Lena expected her to say and it’s enough to finally make her look up and at Kara’s face.

“Excuse me?” Lena asks.

“I mean I own a coffee shop, so for me drinking coffee at all hours is really just part of my lifelong quest to become an actual caricature of myself,” Kara chuckles a little, “but LuthorCorp… guess you weren’t kidding about working hectic hours.” She shrugs, like this is a completely normal thing to focus on. She just found out that she is the CEO of the world’s most notorious tech conglomerate and she’s worried about her hours? Making jokes about coffee?

“Why don’t you hate me?” Lena asks before she can stop herself. Her voice is barely above a whisper, but it’s still loud enough for Kara to hear.

“What?” Kara asks. It comes out rather sharp and makes Lena look at her hands again. “This doesn’t change anything, you know that, right?”

Lena doesn’t know how to reply to this. Because, no, she doesn’t know anything of the sort. Her last name has always changed things. For every person she has ever met. And it’s rarely been for the better. Actually, scratch that, it’s never been for the better. 

She stares at the counter in front of her. There’s a dent in the wood and she circles it with her index finger almost mechanically, feeling the smooth texture of the wood and the slight edge where it’s been clipped. She still can’t bear to look up again and after a couple seconds, Kara reaches out. She moves slowly, giving her time to pull away and, when Lena doesn’t, Kara places her hand on top of hers. 

Her hand is warm and gentle, fingers sliding between hers and giving a small squeeze. It feels like Lena’s entire body narrows in on this one point of contact. Her heart beats so loudly she can feel it in her throat, feels it in her fingers too, her whole heart placed in this space where Kara’s hand touches hers. It takes her a couple seconds (a couple eternities) to remember how to move and when she does, she curls up her fingers ever so slightly to clasp their hands together.

Kara smiles a little, then her expression turns earnest again and she says, “if anything, this only cements the fact that you’re the most interesting person to ever come in here.”

“Guess not many people have a multi-billion-dollar company and a homicidal brother.” It’s supposed to be a joke, but Kara doesn’t laugh. Instead her face goes even more serious and she looks at Lena in a way that doesn’t allow her to look away again.

“Is that how you see yourself?”

Lena tries not to squirm under the sudden scrutiny. “It’s how everyone else sees me.” She shrugs, still trying to seem unfazed even as Kara’s eyes darken. “I mean I’m a Luthor, destined for madness and murder,” she lets out a small, self-deprecating laugh. “It’s funny really, all I ever wanted was to be good, now the entire world is determined to cast me as their villain.”

“I’m so sorry, Lena.” She can hear the honesty in her words and allows herself their brief comfort. “And just for the record that’s not how I see you.”

Lena looks at her, a small, sad smile on her lips. “You’ll change your mind.”

Kara squeezes her hand tighter. “No, I won’t.”

There’s a determined crinkle on her forehead. The same that always appears whenever they fight about Lena paying for coffee or whether kale should be considered food. 

“National City don’t know what they’re missing, because you’re just about the best person I know. I mean you run an insanely successful company that, from what Winn tells me, is trying to develop medical technologies all over the world.” Lena looks up at the awe in Kara’s voice. “And even though you work crazy hours and are literally trying to save the world, you still spent an entire evening making a spreadsheet for my blueberry pie.”

“It was important to you,” Lena says, voice barely above a whisper.

“Yes, and so are you,” Kara says determined. “So no, I’m not going to change my mind and I’ll always be your friend.” She looks at her with a fierceness Lena hadn’t expected. She looks ready to rebut any argument. Like she would stand up for her, even against herself. Lena can feel her throat go tight with it, chest struggling to contain the warmth that begins to flood her.

“Thank you,” she says quietly.

“You don’t have to thank me.”

But she does. She really does. She’s never had someone in her life like this before. Someone who made it a point to be her friend. Someone who held her hand and made her feel like she deserved it. Her vision goes a little blurry and she reaches up with one hand to wipe away at the tears that are now threatening to fall.

“So, what now?” She asks, mostly just to say something. Kara squeezes her hand one last time before letting go.

“Now, I’m gonna make us some more coffee and we’ll act like 11pm is a completely reasonable hour for it and then we’ll eat pie until we feel sick while you tell me about your dinner,” Kara says.

And it really is as easy as that.

* * *

It sure would be nice if Lena could spend the week that follows not overthinking Friday night’s revelations. But it would also mean that her days wouldn’t be filled with unnecessary stress and hours upon hours of staring at her laptop screen without doing any work and then what would she do? Meet her deadlines without pulling all-nighters? Please.

In retrospect, she’s glad that Winn came by and exposed her identity, is glad that Kara finally knows her — all of her. But it does feel like she is holding her breath, like Kara could, at any moment, realize the full scope of the Luthor name and stop speaking to her.

They text throughout the week, trading _how was your days_ and _goodnights_ between them as usual. Kara sends her a picture of her blueberry pie display on Wednesday. There’s a tag attached to it that advertises it as _Lena’s blueberry pie_. She’s captioned it with, “thank you again for all of your help. I thought this was fitting since you were very essential to the whole process,” and added about a million emojis of berries and pies. 

It’s stupid how often Lena goes to look at that picture from then on, how often she zooms in on the little tag and reads her name in Kara’s handwriting. It’s like Kara has granted her a place in the café like this, a role just for herself. She isn’t just the mysterious lady who comes by after hours and is never seen by anyone else. She’s Lena, who has a blueberry pie named after her. 

It’s the picture that finally gets her to relax a bit. 

On Friday, Lena drives up to the café as usual. She’s a little early; there was a mix-up in the kitchen and the main course was served earlier than usual, which sped up the dinner process considerably. Her mother had been furious and Lena is sure that someone will get fired for this absolutely intolerable offence. She, for one, is glad to leave the house early. (She’s glad to arrive early as well.)

She walks up to the café and catches sight of some movement inside. As she walks closer, she can make out Kara, standing in the center of the room, tables pushed to the side and a mop in her hand. She isn’t just cleaning the floors though. She’s dancing, using the mop as a makeshift microphone that she’s signing into rather emphatically. She’s swooshing her hair around, hips moving, and spinning in circles. It looks like the least effective cleaning technique Lena has ever seen. It also looks like tremendous fun.

Lena, reluctant to interrupt the dancing, considers waiting outside for a moment, but it’s cold and she feels weird standing on an empty sidewalk in the middle of the night and so she pushes the door open. She’s immediately met with the sound of ABBA’s Dancing Queen blasting from the speakers. Kara, who’d been doing an approximation of the Running Man, comes to an abrupt and wobbly halt as soon as she sees her. She barely catches herself from toppling over,using the mop to stabilize herself before she reaches for the remote to reduce the volume to a more conversation-friendly level.

“Oh don’t stop on my account,” Lena smirks.

A faint blush creeps into Kara’s cheeks and she gives her a kind of bashful smile. She straightens her apron, which has wrapped around her back weirdly during dancing, and fastens the belt again.

“So, I guess you saw all of that huh?”

“Yes, I do regret not getting a video though, I wish I could have commemorated this for posterity,” Lena says as she moves over to the counter to sit down on her usual stool. Kara pokes her tongue out at her in response and steps behind the counter as well, still fumbling with the strap of her apron.

“You’re kind of mean, has anyone ever told you that?” Kara asks.

“Frequently, though most people aren’t as brave to say it to my face.”

“Well it’s a good thing you have me then,” Kara says simply and Lena almost laughs. She knows that Kara meant it as a way to tease her, but it’s ridiculous how true this statement really is. Most people wouldn’t touch a Luthor with a ten-foot pole, much less tease them. And then there’s this small-town barista, who somehow forgot to be scared of her. And Lena will never not be grateful for that.

“Coffee?” Kara asks then, placing a large, blue mug in front of her before Lena even opens her mouth.

“Do you have to ask?”

Kara grins and pours it in for her, nudging the cup over the counter where Lena accepts it.

“So how was dinner?” Kara asks.

“Today we discussed the color choices of my business attire and how I suggest intellectual inferiority when wearing the color green.”

Kara snorts into her coffee and coughs for a moment before looking up at Lena again. “Excuse me?”

“Don’t look at me,” Lena laughs, “I don’t know what she was talking about either, but I wasn’t going to ask for clarification about the new and surprising ways in which I continue to be a colossal disappointment.” Kara shakes head a little and Lena continues, “I did mentally calculate how many green dresses I could order and wear in public between now and next Friday, so I think that might be my spiteful endeavor for next week.”

“You do look very good in green,” Kara comments and Lena is glad for the cup of coffee she can bring to her lips to hide the blush that blooms in her cheeks at the compliment.

“What else happened?” Kara asks then, reaching for her cleaning utensils under the counter.

And so, Lena tells her. And Kara cleans and listens as she always does. It’s a night like any other, no glitch to their routine. No weird looks or sudden discomfort. Just the two of them drinking coffee, dragging her mother as usual. Lena feels like she finally exhales at that.

* * *

Lena is having a bad day. Not even just a bad day — a colossal disaster of a day. It ranks somewhere between the day Lex went mad and that one Christmas when Lillian forgot her at boarding school. It’s _bad_.

First of all, it’s a Monday, which in itself is a reason for grief. Mondays are filled with board meetings, phone calls, and hours upon hours of paperwork that, more often than not, drags long into the night.

It starts out innocent enough with the coffee machine in her office breaking. Jess does immediately run to the closest coffee shop to get her a cup, but by the time she arrives back, it’s lukewarm and not even close to being brewed strongly enough. Lena doesn’t comment on the fact, just drinks it quietly and forces herself not to wince after every sip.

At about noon, Jess announces a phone call with one of her investors, who tells her that the contract they’d been working on for months didn’t go through. Several months worth of late-night calculations and plans are erased in a single, two-minute phone call. The guy doesn’t even have the decency to say goodbye, leaving her with nothing but the empty sound of the dial tone. 

She’s therefore already in a dangerous combination of under-caffeinated and grumpy when she steps into the board meeting. She hates those meetings on an ordinary day. There’s always something daunting about sitting in a room filled with men. Her dresses stand out against the sea of grey and black suits. Her heels click sharply against the floor where theirs fall silent. She always makes sure her back is straight, jaw set and shoulders squared. And still, she can feel their leering eyes on her week after week, all of them waiting to pounce on any small mistake, ready to finally prove that she isn’t up to the task.

Today is no different, but when she is about half-way through the agenda, the door to the meeting room bangs open, slamming into the wall, and a man she recognizes as Harrison Duncan comes blasting in. He used to be her company’s COO, one of Lex’ hires that she foolishly kept on, thinking that he didn’t seem quite as corrupt as the rest of them. Needless to say she was wrong. She had to let him go a week ago, but judging from the look on his face, he doesn’t seem to be entirely over that particular fact. He starts screaming almost as soon as he enters the room. “

“You bitch!” He points an accusing finger at her that trembles slightly with the barely contained rage. “You think you can just fire me, after all I’ve done for this company?”

“Mr. Duncan, please be aware that you are dangerously close to being thrown out by security right now.” She’s proud of how steady her voice sounds, even as her chest constricts around her words. The other board members are looking between her and their former employee like they’re watching a tennis match. A couple of them are smiling and she isn’t entirely sure who they’d back up if it ever came to it. Mr. Duncan must think the same, because he turns to address the room now.

“She’s every bit the lunatic her brother was,” his hand still quivers, as does his voice when he continues, “worse even, because she’s still under the impression that she is the good Luthor.” He laughs a little at the notion. It comes out more as a huff, an unsteady thing. Lena is pretty sure he’s had a drink prior to this.“The good Luthor, really,” he turns to look at her again, mocking eyes fixing on her. “You fired me because you are on a misguided, little crusade against every person who doesn’t agree with your new vision for LuthorCorp as some kind of charity company. But make no mistake, no matter how hard you’re trying to assuage your guilt, this company is on a direct trajectory to hell and there is nothing you can do about it.”

“That was a bit heavy on the religious imagery, don’t you think?” Lena asks. She places her pen down on the table in front of her, forces herself not to fiddle with it. She leans back in her chair and looks at him with cold eyes. She firms her lips into a straight, harsh line and raises her jaw. She’s practiced this look in the mirror of her apartment multiple times. It’s her don’t-mess-with-me look and she’s got it down like a fine art. She takes a deep breath before she speaks again. “And I didn’t fire you because you didn’t agree with me. I fired you because you traded inside information and were a lazy, disloyal waste of a good office space.”

She’s pressed the button for security by now and considering the way his eyes darken with rage, she sincerely hopes they arrive quickly.

“You know what? I feel sorry for you, because this—“ he gestures at the room, “is all you have to distract yourself from how lonely and pathetic your life really is. You have nothing. And deep down you know that you will follow in your brother’s footsteps soon enough. You are not and will never be good enough, so I hope you enjoy your moment on top. It’ll be over soon enough.”

Each word feels like a direct punch into the gut. It’s nothing she hasn’t heard before, but it still stings. It will sting every time. Her hands are shaking now and she folds them in her lap to disguise it.

Security arrives a second later and Lena swallows heavily before she addresses them. “Please escort Mr. Duncan out and make sure he doesn’t enter the premises again.”

He’s guided outside, huffing and puffing all the way. Lena watches him get escorted away through the large glass panels of the meeting room. Then she turns to the room again, to the sea of eyes trained on her. There’s no air in her lungs anymore, each breath difficult to gather. She feels like she is shaking on the inside, like she might throw up right in front of all these people. She forces herself to draw in a breath. Then another one.

“Right, where were we?” She asks.

By some miracle, she manages to get through the rest of the meeting. The board members keep glancing over at her and she feels every single one of their eyes on her as keenly as if they were tiny pinpricks. People keep passing by the glass walls as well, chancing glances into the room and whispering amongst themselves. She knows the rumor mill is probably running wild already, hushed whispers spreading the tale of how she had one of their colleagues escorted out, how much of a monster she is. She feels slightly nauseous with it all and she genuinely doesn’t know how she makes it through the rest of the meeting, through the goodbyes, and the walk back to her office.

She flees into her bathroom as soon as she’s free, closes the door behind her and turns the lock. Then she slides down against the wall, knees drawn up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. It’s only then that she allows herself to cry.

When she re-emerges fifteen minutes later, it’s to Jess’ worried glance and a, now cold, cup of coffee on her desk. Her secretary trails behind her until she sits down and places a folder with business reports on her desk. She keeps looking at her nervously and Lena sighs. She’s probably heard. Everyone has probably heard by now.

“Anything else?”

“I was just wondering whether you’d like me to clear the rest of your day?” Jess asks, words practically rushing out of her, stumbling over themselves. Lena smiles a little.

“I’m okay, Jess.”

Her secretary nods, then flashes her a quick smile and rushes out of the office, with a, “Yes, Miss Luthor.”

Lena wearily reaches for the first business report, opens the folder and starts to file through the pages. She doesn’t really see any of them, merely goes through the motions of leafing through them, acting like everything is normal, like she isn’t having a colossal disaster of a day. She reaches for the coffee and takes a sip, then grimaces immediately. It’s bitter and cold and leaves a bad taste on her tongue for a long time. She tries to focus on the report again, but her eyes barely register the words. She’s about one second away from flinging the report across the room, when her phone mercifully dings with a new message. It’s her private phone. The one she never mutes and leaves on her desk at all times.

 _Look at this good boy that came to see me at work today_.

It’s a new text from Kara, complete with a selfie of her and a little sausage dog, who is wearing a red and white striped bandana around his neck. Kara is beaming into the camera herself, a nose crinkling, teeth-showing beam of a smile and Lena looks at it for a long time.

She reaches for her coat before she can question it.

“Jess, could you please clear the next two hours, I’ll be back by four,” Lena calls out as she passes her secretary’s desk and heads for the elevator.

“Yes, of course,” Jess stutters, “Would you like me to call your driver?”

“No, I’ll be taking my own car.”

Thirty minutes later she parks her car in Midvale and takes a breath for what feels like the first time that day.

The café is busy. It’s not really surprising considering it’s 2pm on a Monday, but she still somehow hadn’t accounted for the fact that customers would be here at this time. It feels weird for a moment to share this place with other people and so she lingers by the door and takes in the bustling atmosphere inside the café. Most tables are taken up by families or couples sharing food or a cup of coffee. There are three people already sitting at the counter, two of them engrossed in their laptops, while an older man is reading the newspaper. A stool between them is still empty and so she heads over there, just as Kara steps outside the kitchen and spots her.

“Lena!” Through her surprise, Kara’s face lights up immediately, as if Lena’s unexpected appearance has already considerably brightened her day. Lena finds that her shoulders relax even though she hadn’t realized they were tense.

“Hey,” she says once she reaches the counter and drops down on the stool. The man with the newspaper gives her a quick and blatant once-over. She isn’t sure whether he recognizes her or whether he’s a regular and simply wonders who this strange woman who’s on a first name basis with the owner is. He gives a curt nod and returns to his paper, which Lena chooses to read as a welcome, and returns her attention to Kara.

“What brings you here during normal coffee hours?”

“Well, I had an unexpected break at work and thought I’d stop by for coffee.” She hopes that Kara won’t question her thirty-minute drive to stop by for some coffee. But Kara just smiles, happy to see her even under questionable circumstances. She sets down a cup in front of her immediately and fills it with coffee. It’s a lush green mug with a leaf pattern today and Lena accepts it happily.

“Have you had lunch, or can I get you anything?”

“I haven’t even had breakfast yet,” Lena says dryly but regrets it as soon as she sees Kara’s horrified expression.

“Lena it’s 2pm.”

“Sorry,” she winces.

“Oh my god, okay what do you want?”

Lena shrugs. She doesn’t even know what they’re serving. The kitchen is normally closed when she’s here.

“Panini? Soup? Pancakes?” Kara lists a couple more options, but Lena eventually settles on a panini and Kara disappears into the back immediately, grumbling something like “no breakfast yet,” under her breath.

Lena smiles after her and lifts the cup to her mouth with both hands, breathes in the scent of cinnamon and then takes a sip of coffee. It’s hot and rich as always and fills her with a comfort and warmth she hasn’t felt all day. Just as she takes her second sip, Winn passes by with a handful of precariously balanced plates, serves a table at the window, and spots her when he returns behind the counter.

“Oh hey, I thought you only came here Friday nights,” he greets her. He’s also wearing the _Kara’s_ apron today, along with his backwards cap, which Lena quickly comes to associate with him.

“Special occasion,” Lena replies with a smile.

“Well it’s nice to see you again.”

“You too,” she says genuinely.

“Did you hear that?” Winn asks Kara, who has just appeared from the kitchen with a plate. “Lena Luthor is happy to see me.” He sounds genuinely giddy about the fact and Lena vaguely remembers him geeking out about her technology and how much of a fan he was of hers. She hadn’t caught all of it in her haze of panic, but it’s nice to be seen like this. Like she was someone to be excited about.

“I heard,” Kara replies with an amused smile. She sets down the plate in front of Lena. It holds a panini, which is cut in half and a side salad which Kara has arranged in the shape of a smiley. She feels a matching smile take form on her face, which stays there, even as she pops one of the tomatoes into her mouth.

“Also,” Winn starts to speak again. He’s shuffling with his feet a little and turns his cap around on his head. “I’m really sorry about the other night.”

“Oh, it’s okay, it’s not your fault.” And it hadn’t been. She shouldn’t have kept her name from Kara in the first place.

“No, it is,” he says, then turns back to face Kara, “I shouldn’t have assumed that someone who wanted to be a journalist for years would have heard of Lena Luthor.”

Kara swats at him with a kitchen towel. “Obviously I had heard of Lena Luthor, I just didn’t realize she was my Lena.”

They bicker back and forth for a bit longer, but Lena doesn’t catch any of it, because her brain has short-circuited and singled in on this one, casual remark. _My Lena_ . She replays it over and over in her mind, savors the exact intonation of it and tries to commit it to memory. _My Lena._ She is someone’s Lena. She is _Kara’s_ Lena. She only snaps out of it when Kara and Winn eventually fall silent.

“You wanted to be a journalist?” She asks, mostly because they’re both looking at her and she could literally not engage with anything else they said over the past minute or so.

“Yes, in high school, before that I also wanted to be an astronaut though.”

“I think your exact words were space explorer,” Winn chimes in, earning him a jab in the ribs by Kara.

“Stop exposing me, Winn.”

“No, no please keep going this is very informative.” Lena grins.

“Well, one day she wanted to see whether she could fly,” Winn starts, voice lowered into a conspiratorial tone.

“Winn, I swear I will fire you,” Kara threatens.

“You can’t fire me, I’m the only one who knows how all the technology works.”

Kara grumbles something unintelligibly and Winn flashes her a cocky smile in response.

“So, you were saying about flying?” Lena prods.

“You’re as bad as him!” Lena tries not to laugh at Kara’s outraged tone. She shrugs and takes a deliberately long sip of coffee. Kara narrows her eyes at her playfully and it’s nice, this, being in on the joke. This teasing, easy friendship. It’s really nice actually.

“Yes, she put on a red cape and climbed on the pavilion in the town square,” Winn continues.

“Oh no.”

“She tried to jump to the nearest tree to see whether she could fly there.”

“What happened?” Lena asks.

“I flew,” Kara says dryly, “I now have a secret identity as a superhero, congrats you found out.”

Lena chuckles and looks at Winn, who promptly answers her question. “She fell to the ground like a sack of potatoes and broke her arm. Eliza grounded her for week”

Lena laughs at that. Really genuinely laughs at it. And it feels like something inside her finally comes undone at it. It’s hard to believe here, between Kara and Winn and strong, good coffee, that she was crying in a bathroom not even an hour ago.

“Great, whenever you’re done reminiscing about all the embarrassing things I’ve done, I think table three ordered pancakes,” Kara says and shoves her elbow into Winn’s side again, making him squirm away with raised arms and a, “yes, yes, boss.”

The rest of her “coffee break” passes quickly. Way too quickly, if Lena is concerned. Kara keeps passing by, asking whether she needs anything else, whether she’s okay, keeps refilling her coffee without her having to ask for it. Lena notices that she’s the only person in the café receiving coffee from the cinnamon pot and it makes her feel warm all over again.

Whenever there’s a lull in business, Kara always returns to the counter, leans across it right opposite Lena and tells her stories. She tells her about customers and the puppy that came by this morning and anything else that comes to her mind until she is called away again by another customer, not without lingering for just a moment longer, reluctant to leave every time.

Lena watches Kara as she is working, how she has a smile to spare for every customer, how she says hello and knows them all by name. She watches her and Winn perform a well-oiled routine of working together, trading trays and orders without having to speak, years of experience and friendship evident in their every move. Her favorite part is how Kara’s eyes gravitate towards her though. Even when she is working. Even when she is clearing tables. She will look up and find Lena at the counter and offer her a small smile.

When she drives back an hour later, her mood has improved drastically. Upon finding out about her coffee machine, Kara had sent her off with a thermos of coffee and a bag of cookies that she’d drawn little flowers and hearts on. They both sit on her passenger seat now, a happy song is playing on the radio, and nothing seems quite as dreadful as it did before.

* * *

The next Friday rolls around rather quickly, the week passes in a blur of meetings and lab work and so it feels like she barely blinked when she stands in front of the Luthor Mansion again. She’s standing in the doorway, trying to ignore the two gargoyles to its left and right staring at her. Instead she glances at her watch, waiting as the seconds tick by until they finally hit 7pm sharp. It’s only then that she reaches out to rap the knocker against the door. It swings open only seconds later and one of Lillian’s maids greets hers.

“Good evening, Miss Luthor,” she says with a small curtsey. It’s a little bit uncomfortable every time. Even after years of growing up in this house, Lena still doesn’t know what to do in response. Her mother once accused her of lacking “inherent, aristocratic grace”, which Lena had chosen to take as a compliment.

“Good evening, Louise,” she replies. “You know you can just call me Lena.”

“Yes, Miss Luthor,” Louise replies. They perform a variation of this dialogue every single week like a sketch they perform for no one’s entertainment. Lena sighs and shrugs off her coat before she hands it over.

“Your mother is already in the drawing room with Mr. Collins, you may join them,” Louise says and promptly turns away in a hurry.

It takes Lena a second to process this break from their routine. “Mr. who?” She calls out behind her. “No, Louise wait—“ she’s already disappeared though and Lena stands in the foyer on her own. Well, on her own except for the larger than life family portrait, from which Lillian smiles down at her with piercing eyes that are every bit as damning as Lillian’s real eyes. There’s always been something slightly unnerving about this portrait and Lena pokes her tongue out at it before she finally sighs and heads to the sitting room.

Lillian turns as soon as she enters. She’s dressed in a white dress and a soft pink cardigan, hair carefully coiffed. She looks like the blueprint for the Stepford wives. “Oh Lena, how wonderful to see you,” she greets her and Lena almost takes a step back to put more physical distance between her and the sugary sweetness in her mother’s voice.

“Hello, mother,” she replies carefully, then turns to the man, getting up from where he had been seated on the sofa. “I wasn’t aware we were expecting company tonight.”

“You remember William Collins.” Lilian gestures towards the man in question like she could mean literally anyone else.

“No,” Lena says. William laughs at that like she made a joke, this booming, affected laugh she’s heard at so many dinner parties before. She’s always wondered what was worse, the eerie silence during Luthor dinners or this we’re-upper-class-and-don’t-know-how-to-laugh-like-humans laugh. She’s beginning to feel more strongly inclined to the latter right now though.

“He’s Camilla’s son, you’ve met before,” Lillian says with a tight smile. She does vaguely remember Camilla. She was one of Lilian’s socialite friends, one of those rich women who loved to talk about tea parties and the neighborhood and how much she hates poor people. One of those women who’s never had an original thought and drinks sherry at breakfast to compensate for that fact.

Her son, standing in front of her, looks exactly what you’d imagine someone with the name of William Collins to look like. He’s dressed smartly in a dark blue suit, matching tie and shoes that are so polished he could probably see his placid expression reflected in them. His smile is an exact replica of his mother’s and Lena hates him on sight.

“I see,” she says and forces herself to stand still as William approaches her to take her hand and greet her with a firm handshake.

“It’s nice to see you again,” he says.

Lena doesn’t return the sentiment, ignoring the way Lilian glares at her for it. (Not that she had needed encouragement.) They all sit down on the sofas in the center of the room. Lillian passes around drinks, then sits down on the one at the far end, leaving William and Lena to share the one opposite hers. Lena crosses her feet at the ankles and tries to sit as far away from him as possible without seeming rude. She takes a sip of her drink and wishes for the umpteenth time that there was alcohol involved in this.

“So, what brings you here?” Lena asks eventually to break the silence.

“Your mother was so kind to invite me to dinner, she thought it would be nice for us to reminisce about the old times.”

“Did she now?” Lena looks over at Lilian in her pink cardigan and narrows her eyes at her. Lillian merely blinks back as if this is a Friday night like any other. Meanwhile William starts to talk about his family in a process that he probably believes to be ‘reminiscing’. Lena, for one, could have lived happily without a detailed recount of his newest Ferrari and its cylinder capacity and how he, would you believe, had to build a separate garage for it and oh, the troubles he had with the landowner’s society.

Unsurprisingly, the aperitif drags on forever. William keeps making stilted conversation that Lena spaces out on completely for prolonged periods of time. She doesn’t feel like she misses much if she’s honest. Her mother, however, seems far more engaged in the conversation. She throws in _oh really, isn’t that interesting_ and _well imagine that_ with the energy of a 50s housewife, listening to her husband prattle on about the state of the economy.

Eventually, they make it to the dining room where the conversation somehow manages to turn even more unbearable. William seems to have a never-ending well of conversational topics at his disposal that include, but are not limited to: his company, the global economy, money, more money, money and connections, golfing, water polo, and other genuinely mind numbing things. The worst thing is that he keeps asking her questions about all of these topics as well, so she doesn’t even get the chance to properly tune out of the conversation anymore.

“I simply love the opera, though I keep saying that you absolutely have to see opera performed in Italy. There is a passion to their performance that I have never seen on an American stage,” William says and again somehow manages to annoy Lena with every word.

“You are so right, I keep saying that American singers simply do not have that same pathos,” Lillian says, who has never said such a thing before.

“Do you like the opera, Lena?” William turns to ask her.

“No,” she says and pierces a pea with more force than necessary.

“Lena—“ Lillian warns, but William simply laughs like she’s made a joke, that booming, affected laugh again that still grates at her. “You know, we should get together on my yacht some time,” he says like this is a completely natural conclusion and not a complete break from their conversation thus far. It’s enough to get Lena to finally look up from her plate and at their guest.

“Why is that?” she asks, ignoring the way Lillian narrows her eyes at her dangerously.

“Well, I hear you are fond of wine. There’s really nothing like a Chateau Lafite by the seaside, some opera playing in the background. I have quite the record collection, I’m sure I could win you over to the arts.”

“That sounds like a very good idea, don’t you think? You two seem to have ever so much in common,” Lilian chimes in, still using that sugary sweet voice. She makes an encouraging motion with her head as well and that’s really all it takes for Lena to finally snap.

“Can I talk to you for a moment, mother?” She’s already pushing her chair back.

“Lena, we have company.” Lillian gives her a strict look, but Lena simply does not care anymore.

“He’ll be okay.” She doesn’t wait to hear what Lilian says next and rushes out of the dining room and into the foyer, where she halts with her hands on her hips. As soon as she hears the clicking of Lilian’s heels on the floor, she whirls around to face her mother.

“What are you doing?” she all but hisses.

“I was having a lovely dinner until you insisted on this rather rude disruption.” Lilian’s voice has gone back to normal. Gone is the sugary sweet tone and the slightly higher pitch and back is the old steel. Lena would have never thought she’d find that comforting. There’s always room for new lows, she supposes.

“I agreed to these weekly dinners and I’m happy to play your little mother-daughter charade and act like you’re not just having me around to check up on the company, but I didn’t agree to be set up on a date.”

“Please, don’t be so dramatic, Lena. This is not a set-up. it’s just a friendly get-together with an old friend,” Lilian says, shaking her head.

“He asked me where I see myself in five years,” Lena bites out.

“He was making conversation,” Lilian says, “it’s called being polite, perhaps you should try it some time.”

Lena narrows her eyes at her. “Yes, I found it especially polite when he asked me about my inheritance like he was trying to gauge how high a dowry I’d bring to the table.”

Lilian makes a show to sigh as dramatically as possible. “Really, I don’t see what the problem is, Lena. He’s a nice man, he has good manners, good upbringing, you could truly do a lot worse than William Collins.”

“Oh my god, this is a set-up,” Lena exclaims, taking a couple steps back and looking at her mother with incredulity written all over her face.

“You’re making this sound so juvenile, I simply thought he would be an interesting acquaintance to have.” Lilian shrugs.

“Yes, and isn’t he just so interesting, I personally found his 10-minute tangent about his car especially thrilling.”

“At least he was contributing something to the conversation.” Lilian raises one perfectly sculpted eyebrow at her. It’s a move she’s long practiced and used on Lena many times during her childhood, always to convey her distaste in her. She hates how much it gets to her even still. “You could at least try to make an effort,” Lilian adds.

“No.” She sounds petulant and she knows it. She can’t bring herself to care though.

“Whyever not, Lena, really if this is just part of your silly little crusade against me I—“

“Did it ever occur to you that I might already be seeing someone?” Lena interrupts her.

“Well, are you?” Lilian asks.

 _Well shit_. Her mother is still looking at her with her Lilian-Luthor-scrutiny and Lena has to try very hard not to squirm under it. She can’t exactly say no. Not if it means giving her mother the satisfaction of being right.

“Yes, actually,” she says instead.

“Well then you may bring him to dinner from now on,” Lilian says in a tone that doesn’t allow for much argument.

Lena can feel herself begin to panic, her mother is still looking at her with her cold eyes, waiting for a reply and so she does the only thing she can think of doing.

“It’s a she,” she says.

She’d never formally come out to her mother. There hadn’t been much of a point, seeing as they’ve never been a very close-knit family. There weren’t family dinners or meet-the-parents or deep conversations during which she might have told her about past girlfriends or crushes. They simply did not talk to each other. Ever. And she kind of hopes that maybe the shock of this admission will help make her forget about their current situation.

She underestimated Lilian though. 

“Well, then you may bring her to dinner from now on,” she says. It’s the exact opposite of what she expected her to say and so Lena merely stands there for a couple of seconds and blinks, absolutely blindsided at the lack of reaction.

“Excuse me?” she asks eventually.

“Bring her to dinner,” Lilian repeats, more flippantly now. “Now may we go back inside or would you like to scream at me some more. I’m sure our gardener hasn’t heard you yet.”

And that’s the end of that.

* * *

The rest of the dinner is filled with considerable awkwardness. William can certainly tell that things have changed when they return to the table, and not in his favor. Lillian’s tone drops and while it’s not all the way into her normal, harrowing register, it’s back to normal enough to keep William from bragging all too much.

Maybe it would be humorous to watch Lillian try to still engage him in conversation, this time to emphatically steer him away from Lena. Maybe it would be funny to see his confused face and sudden drop in confidence. But all she can think about is that she somehow needs to find a girlfriend by next week.

With all of this going on, Lena feels palpable relief wash over her as soon she gets to exit the house and head to Kara’s. When she gets to the café, she heads straight for the counter and all but drops down on a stool. She throws her clutch onto the counter and allows her arms to fall down onto it as well, only barely resisting the urge to bury her face in them. Instead she looks at Kara miserably.

“What happened?” Kara asks instead of a greeting.

“You’re never going to believe it.”

“Oh, do tell,” Kara says. She sets down a cup of coffee in front of her. This one is pink with little hearts on it. Lena nearly laughs at the irony of it.

“Tonight, my dear mother tried to set me up on a date,” Lena says before taking a sip of coffee. To her gratification, Kara’s mouth actually parts a little in surprise. It’s nice to know that no matter how much she tells her about these dinners, there’s still an element of surprise to the degree of utter lunacy her mother is going to pull.

“With a man called William Collins, no less,” she continues, “who kept talking about the stock market and how I must listen to opera as his way of flirting.”

Kara laughs at that and there’s such a disparity between Kara’s laughter and William’s, Lena wants to lean into it, wants to bottle it up and savor it, this clear and genuine laugh. She finds herself smiling in response as well and starts to recount the night’s events through sips of coffee. The act of retelling makes it even more ridiculous and Kara keeps laughing out loud, covering her mouth or gasping at particularly stupid comments of Collins or her reenactment of Lillian’s weird Stepford performance. 

Soon they are both giggling over the events, which Lena hadn’t really seen happening anytime soon, but feels good nonetheless. But that’s Kara in a nutshell for her. Making her laugh about things that seconds earlier felt horrible. Making her feel good despite the anxiety. It’s like she flips her world on its axis as soon as she steps into the café and she sincerely hopes that she never stops.

“So you know, there I was, at the dining table, contemplating whether to escape through the backdoor or to just fling myself off the rooftop instead, but before I could make a decision, we got into an argument during which I accidentally came out to her by telling her that I could not date him because I was already seeing a woman.”

She watches as Kara’s eyes widen imperceptibly at that particular fact. She sputters a little around the sip of coffee she had been taking and coughs for a second, then returns her attention to Lena with a barely-noticeable — and altogether puzzling — blush. She gestures for her to continue so Lena decides to forego this slightly odd behavior.

“The problem is that now my mother wants me to bring my non-existent girlfriend to dinner, so I guess the takeaway of this whole story is that my life is over,” she closes with a dramatic sigh. Kara shakes her head fondly at the exaggeration and reaches for the coffee pot to top Lena up with it.

“What are you planning to do?” Kara asks. She has taken a small step back so that she is now leaning against the back wall with her arms crossed.

“Change my name, move to Peru and consider a career as a goat farmer?”

Kara gives her a hard look in response that makes her chuckle.

“I mean I guess I could tell her that me and my imaginary girlfriend broke up,” Lena says, “but it sounds suspicious even to me and I really think this her new way to torture me, so it would probably just make her double down on her matchmaking efforts.” She shrugs unhappily.

“What if you brought someone to pretend to be your date?”

Lena laughs, the notion itself ridiculous to her. “I guess I could look into escorting services, otherwise I don’t know who would be stupid enough to willingly subject themselves to endless Friday night dinners with my mother.”

“I would,” Kara says simply and Lena’s head whips up so violently, she feels the stool underneath her wobble ever so slightly.

“Excuse me?”

“I could come along.” Kara shrugs like it’s nothing, like this is a discussion about going to IKEA to pick out furniture and not pretending to be her date in front of her hellhound mother. Lena stares at her blankly for a couple seconds, shock apparently written over her face, because Kara continues, “I mean we’ve been friends for months and it’ll be easier to pretend with someone you know. Besides, I know how you hate those dinners, it might make this whole thing easier on you if you have a friendly face there.”

“Kara, I can’t take you to see my mother.”

“Why not?”

“Well for starters, _I like you_ ,” Lena laughs and sounds kind of breathless with it. “I can’t ask you to subject yourself to Lillian Luthor’s reign of terror every Friday night.”

“As novelistic as it sounds, you didn’t ask, I’m offering.”

Lena stares at her, but Kara doesn’t flinch, not even a little bit. She seems entirely unperturbed by this whole idea, doesn’t seem to be joking, or spit balling just for the sake of saying something. Her eyes are as wide and earnest as they always are, so determined to somehow make this better for her, not even just the girlfriend situation, but Friday night dinners as a whole. It does unspeakable things to her chest. 

She swallows, looks at the wall behind Kara, at the shelf with cups that seems to be never-ending. It’s almost become a timeline of her months at the café now, each cup an illustration of a night spent here. There’s the yellow cup she had when Kara wrote down her phone number for her. There the cup with the Peanuts comic strip she drank out of when they argued about kale for the first time. It’s a whole set of memories, stacked away in a shelf on the wall. She turns back to Kara, feeling even more choked up now.

“You’d really do that? Pretend to date me?”

“Of course,” Kara says, “I like spending time with you, I’ll get a great dinner out of it and meet the infamous Lillian Luthor, you know, it might be fun.”

“If you think that dinners with my mother could, under any circumstances, be fun, I guess we’re going to have to discuss lowered expectations first.” Kara laughs at that, but Lena turns back to serious. “Besides, what about the café?”

“I can swap with my Friday night shift with Winn; I’ll take his Saturday morning instead. He’s been dying to ditch that one anyway.”

“You’re serious about this,” Lena says, still staring at Kara in front of her.

“Yeah,” Kara grins.

Objectively, it’s a bad idea. And deep down Lena knows this. She’s still not 100% certain how Kara became a part of her life in the first place, how she ended up as lucky to have her as a friend. But she does know that what they have here is precious to her and that it’s a terrible idea to subject Kara to her mother and all the knowledge of just how messed up her life really is. 

But then there’s Kara, who is fiddling with her glasses at her sudden silence. Her eyes have lost none of their determination though, her smile is still every bit as gentle. A sudden fondness slices through Lena like a cup of hot coffee, makes her chest flood with it and her throat close up. 

She wets her lips and tastes the faint aftertaste of cinnamon and thinks about how much better Kara continues to make things for her. How she’s rewritten these Friday nights into occasions of joy. How she never seems to run out of any kindness for her. How much better these dinners would be if she was there.

“So?” Kara asks after a long silence. She manages to sound hopeful like it’s somehow Lena doing her the favor instead of the other way around.

“It would only be on Fridays,” Lena says before she can overthink it and Kara’s smile turns into a blinding beam.

“Okay.” Kara nods enthusiastically, voice barely concealing a squeal.

“And you can back out any time,” Lena says, trying her hardest to sound as serious as she is about this, despite the smile that is threatening to split her face open as well. Kara simply continues to nod with enthusiasm.

“I mean it,” Lena says, “if we get there and she says hello and you suddenly feel cold dread seize you and your palms begin to sweat and you realize that this has been a gigantic mistake, we can turn around right there and I won’t blame you.”

Kara laughs. “I think you’re underestimating me but thank you,” she says. Then she turns serious for a moment. “The same goes for you though. You can back out any time, no questions asked.”

Yeah, somehow Lena doesn’t really see any danger in that happening, but she smiles anyway.

“We’re really doing this,” she says, a quiet amazement laced in her voice.

“We’re really doing this,” Kara confirms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I feel like I have to apologize for the delay in updating this!! I was much busier than I anticipated and had a million things on my plate that kept me from updating this in a somewhat timely manner! Anyway here it is now, I hope you enjoyed it anyway!! (Raise your hands if you got my lil nod to The Proposal, the OG Fake Dating movie)  
> Also thank you so much for reading, I would love to hear your thoughts on this!! 
> 
> You can also find me @concreteskies on twitter and @dancingontiptoes on tumblr if you want to yell!
> 
> PS Thanks to Wendy for helping me edit this and making sure the business aspects of this are somewhat believable!!


	3. three.

Picking Kara up at the café was a stupid idea. Lena’s been circling around that particular realization for the past ten minutes while staring at the building on the other side of the road. It’s busy on a Friday evening, the door swinging open and closed every few minutes with people entering and leaving.

There hadn’t been much of an alternative though, since Kara’s apartment, as it turns out, is right above the café and doesn’t have a separate entrance, only the staircase leading up from the backdoor by the kitchen.

This is exactly why there need to be work-home boundaries: so your fake date doesn’t have to sit in her car for ten minutes wondering whether it’s okay to show up early to a pretend date and whether she should have brought flowers and just what she’s doing here in the first place. (Okay maybe she’d still be doing that but at least there wouldn’t be witnesses.)

Stupid idea.

Really.

Lena sighs in frustration and checks her phone for what seems to be the hundredth time in the past five minutes, only to discover that it cruelly still isn’t half past.

She drums her fingers on the steering wheel. Checks her phone again. Ten seconds have passed.

It takes two more minutes of incessant fussing until the clock on her phone finally springs to the half past mark and she gets out of the car. An old couple walks up to the café behind her and she holds the door open for them as she enters and then turns to the room.

She’s always been overdressed for this place, what in her three-piece suits and evening dresses, but normally it’s just Kara and her, so she doesn’t mind. She definitely does mind when at least three tables turn to her and take in her appearance. So much for a casual pickup.

Winn, at last, spots her from behind the counter and waves her over. Before they can say hello though, the backdoor swings open and Kara steps into the café and Lena suddenly doesn’t care about her own looks anymore. She isn’t even entirely sure she still possesses a body, because everything seems to narrow in on this one, singular fact:

Kara is wearing a dress.

She’s wearing a red, well-fitted dress.

A dress that hugs her curves and leaves her arms bare – her surprisingly incredibly very toned arms. Lena has to physically force her eyes away to take in the rest of her appearance. Her hair is in a half-updo with curls spilling down her back and she’s wearing heels that allow her to tower over Lena by at least an inch.

Kara’s always been beautiful but there’s something about seeing her outside of her work clothes and costumery flannel that does something to Lena’s insides she isn’t entirely willing to acknowledge.

“Hey,” Kara says. She comes to a halt in front of Lena, the door falling shut behind her.

Lena blinks at her mutely for a couple seconds until she remembers that this is ordinarily where she should say something back. “Hi,” she replies, breath hitching on the one syllable. Her mother would be appalled to know that years of conversation training amounted to this. Then again, none of her training prepared her for Kara Danvers in a dress.

Neither one of them moves for a moment. Kara fidgets with her hands and smooths out non-existent crinkles from her dress while Lena continues to take in her appearance with absolutely no thoughts running through her head. Well, maybe there’s one thought. _Arms_.

“Is this dress okay?” Kara asks eventually, clearly unsure what to make of Lena’s look.

“Yes,” she hurries to force out, even while thinking that _okay_ might actually be the understatement of the century.

“I know you said it didn’t matter what I wear, but you always dress up and it’s your mother, so I wanted to look nice, but I haven’t worn a dress in forever and this is my friend Nia’s and she said it’s very chic, but I don’t know–” she pauses, then adds, “I can change?” It comes out as a rush of words by the end of which Kara breathes in heavily.

It soothes her somehow that Kara is just as nervous as she is and it allows her to regain some of her composure.

“You look beautiful,” Lena says, voice soft and earnest. She waits until Kara makes eye contact and then reiterates, “very beautiful.”

Kara’s shoulders visibly relax. She offers Lena a small smile and then seems to take in her appearance for the first time. Lena’s wearing a blue, form fitting suit, dark red lipstick and her hair is up in a ponytail. It’s a power look she chose specifically to face her mother today, but it’s also surprisingly complimentary to Kara’s red dress.

“You look beautiful, too,” Kara says shyly and Lena tries not to glow too outwardly at the compliment.

“Thank you.”

There’s silence again and Lena desperately wishes she’d brought flowers just to have the routine of exchanging them, to have something to do with her hands other than to clutch them nervously.

The moment lasts a little too long and they both startle when Winn dramatically clears his throat beside them. “No, it’s nice to see you too, I’m also having a good day thanks for asking.” His petulant tone breaks some of the tension as Kara rolls her eyes and Lena laughs.

“Hi Winn,” Lena says, turning to him. “It really _is_ nice to see you.”

Winn rolls his eyes and mutters something like “yeah, yeah” under his breath, before leaning back against the counter with his arms crossed and grinning.

“So,” he draws out the sound forever. “Fake dating, huh?”

Lena lets out a small laugh. “It’s just on Fridays,” she replies. She isn’t quite sure whether it’s supposed to be a defense or an apology. Either way it makes Winn roll his eyes.

“It’s not fake all the other days?” he asks.

“What?”

“Ignore him,” Kara cuts in and shoves her elbow into Winn’s side as she steps up next to Lena. “Ready?” she asks and, ever chivalrous, offers her arm to her.

And Lena, who’s still not entirely sure that she _is_ ready to take Kara to see her mother and watch the inevitable blow up that is about to occur, takes it anyway and says, “yes”.

* * *

The sight of the Luthor Mansion melts away whatever residual scraps of confidence Lena had about this dinner. She’s parked her car and is now standing next to Kara at the other end of the walkway leading towards the building. She’s unsure what to say that might excuse the excessive grandeur of her childhood home and so she remains quiet and allows Kara to take in the sight in front of her. Her eyes are wide with wonder (or maybe shock, if Lena is less optimistic about it). It’s nerve-wracking to say the least to imagine the house from Kara’s perspective.

It’s nothing like the dainty, colorful houses in Midvale. Instead of warm colors and little porches, the mansion stretches out in front of them, stoic and cold, more akin to a glare than a building. Large oak trees frame the house, casting shadows across the roof panels – a thousand, ghostly hands dancing across the surface.

It’s not just the vaguely haunted vibe of the place that worries her though, but more the fact that she is acutely aware of just how ostentatious and show-offish it is. The road ahead of them is framed by stone bannisters and perfectly tended shrubs on either side, carefully arranged in exact symmetry. The family crest waves on a flag, perched on the highest tower. There’s a tiny labyrinth in front of the entrance way for god’s sake. Who do they think they are?

Kara still stands next to her in silence and Lena has to force herself to finally turn to her, half-expecting Kara to demand to be driven back immediately.

“You grew up here?” Kara asks, tearing her eyes away from the house to meet Lena’s.

“Yes,” Lena replies on a whisper, unsure what this information will do to Kara’s estimation of her.

“That’s–” she pauses for a moment and Lena fills the silence by thinking up enough adjectives to fill a small dictionary. Horrible. Disgusting. Pretentious. 

“Wow,” Kara says instead. She fumbles with her glasses for a moment. It’s something Lena has noticed her do when she isn’t sure what to do with her hands. She doesn’t appear to be horrified though. Overwhelmed, sure. But not scared. Lena chooses to take it as a good sign.

“It looks like out of a fairytale. Like there should be a princess living here, or a heroine looking for adventure,” Kara says, “there should definitely be a dragon.”

“Well, there is my mother,” Lena replies dryly.

Kara laughs and the sound breaks something inside Lena. It’s unguarded and genuine – a harsh contrast to this place. It’s enough to finally make her feel a little better about this whole endeavor.

They start walking slowly, careful not to catch their heels on the cobble stones and eventually arrive at the doorway. Lena hesitates before reaching for the knocker and turns to Kara.

“Last chance to back out,” she says. Her tone is light enough to be taken as a joke, but she has every intention of turning around right there should Kara have changed her mind.

Kara merely grins though. “No way.” She bumps her shoulder against Lena’s lightly, urging her to knock, and so Lena takes one last, steadying breath and raps the knocker against the door. Here goes nothing.

“Good evening,” the maid greets them as soon as the door swings open. “May I take your coats?”

“Good evening, Louise.” Lena shrugs her coat off and hands it over, watching as Kara fumbles with her little handbag to take hers off and hand it over as well.

“Hi, I’m Kara,” she says as Louise accepts the coat.

Louise blinks at her for a couple seconds, before curtseying and quietly saying, “I wish you a pleasant evening,” and hurrying off quickly.

Kara frowns as she disappears into another room and turns to Lena. “Did I say something wrong?”

“No,“ Lena hurries to reassure her. “You were perfectly polite, but I simply cannot stress how much of a reign of terror my mother holds over this house. When I first asked her name, she startled so badly I thought she was going to faint.” 

“Oh.”

Lena wants to say more but isn’t entirely sure what. She doesn’t want to tell her about the many lonely years of her childhood during which she tried to befriend the ever-changing maids that came through the house. It took her a long time to understand that they were too afraid of her last name to ever talk to her outside of rehearsed pleasantries. She doesn’t want to tell her about the birthday cards she used to make them that all ended up in the trash eventually. She doesn’t want to tell her how often she cried herself to sleep, because she watched Lillian fire one of them in a rather spectacular and unnecessarily cruel manner.

She shouldn’t have brought Kara here. She _really_ shouldn’t have brought her here.

Before she can convince Kara to just turn around and make a beeline back to Midvale though, she can hear the sound of her mother’s heels on the floor. A couple seconds later, she appears on the landing. The elevated position of the landing and the low light of the chandelier make for a dramatic entrance, Lena will give her that. She’s wearing a white pant suit that contrasts strongly with the dark, wooden panels of the walls. She looks like an apparition as she walks down the steps to meet them.

“So,” she says, once she stands in front of them, “you’re here.” There is no indication in her tone to signify whether she is particularly pleased or chagrined by this fact, though Lena tends to be inclined to the latter.

“Mother, this is Kara. Kara, this is my mother,” Lena makes the introductions.

“How do you do,” Kara says sweetly and Lena feels her stomach clench to hear it wasted on her mother’s glare.

“Very well, dear,” Lillian says and gives her a noticeable once-over. Once her eyes land back on Kara’s face, she purses her lips a little. It’s the tiniest of movements but even so it manages to convey her dismay. “I’m so glad you two could make it and that I finally get to meet you. I must say, Lena has kept you quite under wraps.”

“Oh well,” Kara chuckles lightly, “it’s all quite new.”

“As I’m sure,” Lillian says. “Why don’t you follow me into the drawing room?”

Lillian turns to lead the way, leaving them to follow behind her. “You okay?” Lena mouths at Kara behind her mother’s back, but Kara is too distracted by the house and its ornamentations to notice it.

Once they arrive in the drawing room, they take their seats on the large sofa on the far side of the room. Kara looks around with wide eyes, taking in the carefully crafted stucco, heavy curtains and carefully selected trinkets on display. In the meantime, Lillian has stepped up to the drinks wagon and turns around to face them. “So, a club soda for Lena and what would you like, Kara?” she asks, reaching for the crystal glasses as she speaks.

“I’ll have the same.”

“You can have anything you want,” Lillian says with one eyebrow carefully raised.

“She has wine, beer, hard liquor,” Lena counts off. “I especially recommend the latter.”

Lillian sighs at her comment but Lena notices the way Kara has to stifle a smile and that makes it more than worth it.

“I’m fine with a club soda, thank you.”

Lillian nods, though something flashes in her eyes that tells Lena that this simply drink choice marks the first test of the evening and Kara has somehow already failed it. Maybe she should have instructed her to take a bourbon instead. There’s something about this family and drinking expensive bourbon like it is a personality trait. Maybe she should have made her order a sex on the beach just to see what would happen.

It’s too late now though, as Lillian hands them their drinks, ice clinking against the crystal of the glasses. Then she takes her seat on the sofa opposite theirs, sips on her drink, and then leans back, smiling at them. The whole action has the quality of an animal circling its prey and Lena has to fight her own instincts to flee. Instead, she crosses her feet at the ankles.

“Well, I’m simply dying to hear you two met,” Lillian says eventually.

Lena glances over at Kara, who meets her eyes with an encouraging nod. They’ve prepared for this. Even if they didn’t talk about drink orders, this, at least, they planned for.

**One week ago. Midnight. Post approximately four or five coffees (who’s keeping count really).**

_“I definitely kissed you first,” Kara says like it is the most obvious thing in the world and Lena feels her face go hot with it._

_They’ve been planning the background story of their relationship for hours now, discussing needless details like who stays over more, or which side of the bed they sleep on, because ‘details like this make a story come to life, Lena.’_

_They’ve only just ventured into the actual logistics and origins of their relationship though and Kara has come up with several outlandish scenarios as to how they began dating and so Lena can’t wait to see where this particular trail of thought lands them._

_“Oh did you now?”_

_“Yes, definitely, I think that is a given,” Kara replies. “Also, as much as I like the safari idea, I think we should say we met at the café, you know, keep it grounded in reality.”_

_“I think that’s smart, yes.”_

_“Maybe we should say you were a regular and we pined for each other for months but never talked until one day I spilled coffee on you and you came up to the flat to borrow a t-shirt and I ended up kissing you.”_

_“Are you adopting the plot of Notting Hill to make yourself both Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts?”_

_Kara looks delighted at her reply. “You’ve seen Notting Hill?”_

_“Why do you sound so surprised?” Lena laughs._

_“I just thought you were one of those bougie city girls who only watches arthouse movies and talks about the aesthetic.”_

_“Oh, don’t worry I do that too.” She chuckles. “But I am partial to a good romcom.”_

_Kara looks very pleased with that response. “So, we’ll go with the Notting Hill story?”_

_“Sure,” Lena shrugs. “I guess, in the end, I am just a girl standing in front of a girl, asking her to lie to her mother for an undetermined amount of time and to suffer through the horrors of family dinners with her.”_

_“Just as good as the original,” Kara says contently and pours them another coffee._

Lillian meets their story with no small amount of stoicism on her end. She forces a smile here and there, but the more they delve into Kara’s coffee shop and their less than glamorous meeting, the more strained it becomes.

Louise enters at some point of the story and announces that dinner is ready, which is how they end up sitting around the dinner table by the time the story is finished. Lena and Kara are on opposite sides and sit facing each other. There is a large floral center piece in the middle of the table that obscures half of Kara’s face though and makes it difficult to read her expression. Lillian is sitting at the head of the table, the picture of perfect poise. They sit in silence for a moment once Lena and Kara have stopped talking. It’s almost eerily quiet. Lillian takes a sip of her red wine, swirls it in her glass for a moment and then looks from one to the other.

“Well, isn’t this story just… charming.”

Kara smiles a little. It comes up a little forced and insecure, but the fact that she puts up a valiant effort against Lillian’s clipped tone in the first place is enough for Lena to admire her greatly.

“So,” Lillian turns to Kara, “you run a café then?”

“Yes,” Kara replies and takes a small sip of her drink to steady herself before saying more. “I have been for five years now.”

“And this is in National City as well, I assume?”

“No, it’s in Midvale.”

Lillian stares at her blankly. “Midvale?”

“Yes, it’s 15 miles from here, about halfway to National City.” That elaboration is met with another unintelligible stare and silence. “It’s the home of the hay ball contest and Elle’s pumpkin pie,” Kara adds and immediately grimaces. She lifts her glass to her lips and avoids Lillian’s eyes to take another sip. Lena feels for her so acutely that her hands shake with it and she puts her fork down on her plate.

She shouldn’t have brought her here. She never should have brought her here and placed her down for her mother’s judgement. It’s enough for her to be judged here on a weekly basis. It’s enough for her to reevaluate her life choices every week and feel like nothing but a speck of dust on the carefully polished surface of her mother’s lifestyle. She never should have subjected Kara to the same treatment.

“Home of the hay ball contest,” Lillian muses. “That certainly sounds very quaint.” She enunciates the _t_ so strongly it sounds like an insult which Lena is sure to be intentional.

“Mother,” Lena warns, voice carefully measured but no less threatening.

Lillian turns her attention to Lena now. “Well you must excuse my surprise, dear.”

“Must I?”

Lillian sighs and lays her fork down as well. “I was merely under the illusion that you were too busy to go off gallivanting through the countryside. By god, you made the drive here sound like an insurmountable obstacle when I first brought it up.”

“I guess these dinners really made me appreciate my car,” Lena drawls.

Lillian doesn’t dignify that with a response and merely picks up her knife and fork to cut the world’s smallest piece of meat to bring to her lips.

“So, you run a café then dear,” Lillian repeats her previous question.

“Yes,” Kara nods.

“And is that a very lucrative profession, do you find?”

“Mother,” Lena warns again.

“Really, Lena, am I not allowed to take an interest?”

“It’s okay,” Kara says before Lena can reply with a decided no. She flashes her a reassuring smile and Lena feels Kara’s foot nudge hers under the table in what is probably supposed to be a comforting way. 

“It pays the bills,” Kara replies back to Lillian, “but it’s not really about the money for me.”

“No?” 

“No,” Kara says firmly. “I like my job, it makes me happy to bake and talk to the customers. It makes me happy to be a good part of their day, however small.” There’s a surprising amount of steel under Kara’s gaze. She sits upright in her chair, hands still around her cutlery, looking Lillian right in the eye as she speaks. Lena genuinely didn’t know Kara had it in her. She stares at her across the ostentatious flower arrangement and barely hides a smile.

“Well, you certainly appear very decided in your opinion,” Lillian remarks.

Lena watches in quiet awe as Kara doesn’t flinch and simply confirms, “yes.”

Lillian hums pensively. “So, what is it you plan on doing in the future?” she asks, cutting another piece of her roast with careful precision while still looking Kara dead in the eye.

Kara blinks, confused. “I was planning on running the café.” It’s a statement, but it comes out as more of a question.

“Oh, I did not realize this was a long-term career plan.”

Kara’s smile turns a little more forced now and she looks at the plate in front of her, as if searching for comfort in the side of potatoes.

“So, you don’t have plans of franchising your café then? Perhaps moving to a bigger city? Expanding?” Lillian continues.

“I am very fond of Midvale and my little café there, so no, I think I’m happy where I am.”

“That’s nice, dear,” Lillian patronizes. “It must be so rewarding to have no aspirations.”

“Mother.” This time Lena foregoes the warning tone and sets her cutlery down so forcefully, the resulting clang startles the maid, who’d been refilling the water decanters, and has her scuttling out of the room.

“Yes?” Lillian turns to her, eyebrows raised, an imitation of confusion written all over her face as if to suggest that she has no idea where Lena’s outrage could possibly stem from. Lena takes a long, careful breath and counts to three.

“I think we've heard enough of that,” she says, proud of how steady she sounds.

“Fine," Lillian says. "I suppose we can always discuss the weather instead. I’m sure your girlfriend–” she eyes Kara with disdain at the word– “will have much to contribute there.”

“Really, the weather?”

“Well what else do you talk about? I fail to see how your lives intersect at all aside from a mutual appreciation for coffee, which surely you share with 80% of the population.”

“Yes, it must be difficult to understand for you, since you’ve never taken interest in a person beyond the number of their bank account,” Lena bites out.

“There is nothing wrong with having certain standards and values, Lena. I don’t understand why you so stubbornly refuse to have any.”

“Oh, I have values, but they have always differed from yours, they begin with not condoning homicide and end somewhere at not insulting guests or judging people based on their income, but I guess you wouldn’t understand.”

“You might want to lower your tone, we do have company,” Lillian replies to Lena’s outburst.

“This is where you draw the line, really?”

Silence falls over the table, heavy and awkward. It feels stifling, like an onerous fog suddenly started to share their air. Lillian has picked up her knife and fork again and the only sound that fills the void is the way her cutlery scratches over the plate. Lena picks her fork up again and pierces a bean with more force than necessary. She doesn’t dare to look at Kara after this display. Just eats individual beans in silence.

“The food is lovely by the way,” Kara says once the stillness becomes unbearable.

“I will pass your compliments on to the cook,” Lillian says with a tight smile.

“Oh, do take credit where it’s due, mother. This roast simply wouldn’t be the same without that slight taste of disdain and disappointment.”

Lillian doesn’t deem that worthy of a response; instead she sighs and turns to her plate again. Silence threatens to take over once more.

A moment passes. “So, I hear the weather’s supposed to be nice tomorrow,” Kara says. And that’s that for dinner Lillian Luthor.

* * *

It’s already dark outside when the door finally clinks shut behind them. The path to the car is illuminated by miniature streetlamps, which they approach in silence. Lena doesn’t dare to look over at Kara. Instead, she keeps her eyes trained on her Louboutin’s and the way they hit the cobble stones underneath her.

An owl calls in the distance in the otherwise silent night. The only other sound comes from their heels clicking against the stones. She wants to say something, but her mouth feels dry and empty and so she keeps her eyes on the ground and doesn’t speak.

“So,” Kara says about half-way to the car, “that was something.”

“I’m so sorry.” Lena doesn’t so much say this than it spills out of her. A well of apologies at the back of her throat that’s flowing over. It’s all she has really, to repeat apologies over and over again and hope that they will be enough. Before she can get to that though, Kara turns to her with her forehead furrowed.

“What are you sorry for?”

Lena stares at her incredulously and comes to a halt. She looks back at the house as if to make sure it’s still there. That this entire endeavor hasn’t been some kind of fever dream on her end. 

“I dragged you here,” she points out.

Kara also stops and shakes her head. “You didn’t drag me anywhere,” she says, then steps a little bit closer to her and makes sure Lena is looking at her instead of the ground when she continues. “And I don’t regret coming. I knew what I was getting into, Lena,” she says earnestly. She offers her an encouraging smile that Lena is more grateful for than she could ever say with words. It makes her feel like she can breathe again and that’s no light thing for a smile to accomplish.

“And hey–” Kara continues as she starts walking again, Lena falling into step beside her– “at least that’s one dinner down. Maybe next time we’ll tell her that aside from owning the café, I’m also a journalist for _Horses and Hounds_ and see how she deals with that.”

Lena lets out a startled laugh that is quickly overtaken by a more serious expression. “Next time?” she asks and when Kara shoots her a thoroughly confused look, she adds, “you want to do this again?”

“I thought that was the arrangement?”

“Yes but… you’ve met her now, and dinner was awful. I just assumed–”

“That I would bail on you?” Kara asks, sounding vaguely outraged.

“I mean I wouldn’t blame you.”

Kara shakes her head. There’s this fierceness in her eyes again, the same fierceness Lena witnessed when Kara talked to her mother. “First of all, I would never. And second, you still need a girlfriend, right?”

“I mean…yes?”

“Great, so I’m still in it if you are,” Kara says as if it were truly that simple. They’ve reached the car by now and are both standing on the passenger side. Kara is leaning against it with her shoulder while Lena fumbles with the key in her jacket pocket, unable to keep her hands from shaking at the fact that Kara is still somehow willing to do this. For her. She’s doing this just for her.

“Besides, after this dinner, I’m genuinely wondering how you ever made it through this alone in the first place,” Kara says.

“Oh, you now, the trick is emotional detachment and repression.” She finally manages to unlock her car and almost misses the way Kara hides a smile at her response.

“Well, from now on it’s about teamwork and elaborate lies,” Kara says. “Do you think I should create a quirky roommate? I feel like a Spike character could really win her round to me.”

It’s Lena’s turn to hide a smile now. She fails miserably though but can’t muster up the will to care about it. “Well, I certainly have no qualms with lying to my mother so tell her whatever you want, and I’ll back you up.”

Kara grins. “We’ll discuss it over coffee?”

“Now?” Lena asks. It’s becoming kind of old to be so perpetually surprised in one night, but apparently that’s just the way it is for now.

“Oh, I just thought it’s tradition… but if you want to get home, I–”

“No,” Lena interrupts her quickly and perhaps a little bit too loudly, because Kara jumps a little. “I just–” there’s not really a good way of saying _I thought you’d be tired of me by now, so I didn’t want to assume you’d sacrifice any more of your time for me, but I would love to have coffee with you_. “I couldn’t go home without my Friday night comfort coffee,” she says instead like a cool and collected person, who absolutely saw this coming. (This meaning Kara’s shocking and unprecedented determination to stick around for her.)

Kara grins and that settles it. They get into the car and drive off. The Luthor Mansion grows smaller in the rear window while Kara is fumbling with the radio in her car. Lena knows she is messing with the channels and that it’ll take her forever to put them back in place but frankly, she doesn’t care. It takes Kara a long time until she manages to connect her phone to the speakers and when she does, it is to blast 70s music so loudly that Lena nearly swerves off the road. She glances over at Kara who is singing along passionately, then out at the dark and empty road in front of them and thinks that this is certainly something she could get used to.

* * *

“Welcome back, lovebirds,” Winn greets them as soon as they step through the door of the café. He wiggles his eyebrows suggestively at them and Lena can’t help but smile. In her periphery, she sees Kara do the same.

“So…” Winn leans forward onto the counter and perches his chin on both hands, “how was the fake dating?”

“It was okay,” Lena edges, unsure how to describe tonight accurately. Did they have a good time at dinner? Definitely not. Did her mother buy the whole dating thing though? Absolutely yes. She also got to spend an entire evening with Kara and spent the way back in the car listening to the 70s playlist Kara put on, which mostly consisted of ABBA and Kara singing along loudly and passionately until their dinner of horrors was almost forgotten. So really, it’s about the small successes right?

“Ohh, am I sensing trouble in paradise?” Winn jokes, resulting in Kara rolling her eyes at him. They’ve both arrived at the counter now. Kara has thrown her bag onto a nearby table and has begun to rummage around behind the counter, looking through the receipts of the evening and making sure the menus are neatly stacked again.

“Dinner was fine,” Kara says, “her mother was a bit protective.”

“If you replace a bit protective,” Lena uses air quotes around the words, “with ‘her usual horrible self’, you might get a more accurate picture.”

Winn looks between them and grins a little.

“Anyway, the food was good, and the company was excellent as well,” Kara says with a wink to Lena.

A blush creeps up into her cheeks and she sits down on one of the stools to keep herself busy before replying. “The company definitely made this dinner more enjoyable than usual.”

Kara beams at that and even though Lena knows that her cheeks are likely still bright pink, she meets her eyes anyway and smiles back.

Their moment is interrupted by Winn, who coughs loud enough to have Kara turn to him in concern. “Are you okay?”

“Yes, sorry, I must be allergic to all this fake romance in the air,” he drawls.

Kara rolls her eyes and steps past him and towards the coffee machine to start a pot of coffee.

“So how did you get on with the café?” Her words are almost drowned out by the loud gurgle of the coffee machine starting its coffee-making-process.

Winn shrugs. “No one really interesting came in. Mrs. Talbot spilled her coffee onto her crossword again and made me copy it onto a blank piece of paper so she could still finish it.”

“Again?” Kara asks.

“Yeah, Will tried to advertise for some kind of show he wants to put on in the pavilion. It’s called Leviathan or something, but I don’t think he has it quite fleshed out yet.” Kara nods along with his words. “So, nothing out of the ordinary really happened and I left the espresso machine for you to clean,” Winn finishes quickly as if hoping that speed of words might make Kara miss their meaning. He’s already reaching for his jacket on a peg inside the kitchen and swings it across his shoulders.

“Winn,” Kara exclaims though.

“No,” Winn interrupts her, holding up his index finger to physically undermine his strict tone. “That machine is a hazard to clean and you’re just so much better at it than I am.”

“That’s because I always have to do it. If you’d just cleaned it a couple times, you’d see that it’s not as bad as you think.”

“Sorry.” Winn shrugs. “I’m simply not looking to improve my skill set at this time.”

Kara sighs, but Lena can tell that there’s no real anger in her. Winn must conclude the same because he flashes a lopsided grin at Lena and heads for the door.

“Well, enjoy your casual coffee night,” he says over his shoulder.

“We will, don’t worry,” Kara says.

“See you next week, Lena,” he shouts and Lena has just the time to reply with a quick, “bye,” before the door falls shut behind him.

Kara shakes her head at the door with fond exasperation written over her face, before she reaches for two large cups and sets them down in front of them. This time they are red and blue mugs. The red one has a yellow star on one side, reading _You tried_ , while the blue one is decorated with little white flowers in a ditzy, grandmother-like pattern that is strangely soothing to look at. Kara arrives with the pot of coffee and pours them both a cup, nudging the blue one towards Lena.

“Well, here’s to our first successful fake date.” She holds the cup out like glass of champagne and Lena smiles as she clinks her cup against it.

“Can’t say I’ve ever cheered for that before.”

“I should hope not.”

Lena smiles and takes a sip of her drink, feeling the comforting blend of cinnamon and coffee warm her chest, and sighs a little bit in contentment. They’re both quiet for a moment, happy to just drink their coffee in peace and enjoy this moment until Kara sets down her cup and reaches for an apron to wear on top of her beautiful dress

“So, let me get started on this,” she says, gesturing towards the espresso machine. She gets to work quickly and has it disassembled in no time, all the while humming something to herself that Lena now recognizes as one of the ABBA songs they had listened to in the car.

Once most parts have been disassembled for cleaning, Kara lays them out along the counter and disappears into the kitchen with a quick, “I’ll be right back.” Lena can still hear her humming to herself over the sound of running water and cupboards opening and shutting as Kara reaches for cleaning supplies.

The parts of the machine are laid out in front of her on the counter and as she reaches for her coffee mug, she catches a glimpse of something on one of them for the first time. It’s an engraving on one of the front parts of the machine, normally hidden away behind the counter. Lena leans in a bit more closely and can make it out to read, _To Eliza and Jeremiah, may your mornings ever be filled with coffee and love_. She reaches out for it involuntary, her fingers itching to trace the engraving before she pulls her hand back and clenches it instead. Something about it feels too intimate for her to touch, like she embarked on a private moment, a story she is not a part of.

“It was their wedding gift,” she hears Kara say and her attention is pulled to her standing in the doorway to the kitchen with a bright yellow bucket in hand and her hair freshly up in a ponytail.

“They got an industrial espresso machine for their wedding?”

“Yes.” Kara sets down the bucket on the counter and reaches for the cloth to start cleaning the individual parts, treating each part gently despite their metal nature. “They both worked hectic jobs back then. Their morning cup of coffee was the only time they could deliberately set aside to spend with each other, so they wanted it to be special.”

Lena has only caught glimpses of Kara’s life with the Danvers so far. She’s talked a lot about her sister, Alex, about family game nights and Eliza’s cooking. She hasn’t learned so much about her foster parents yet, aside from Kara’s obvious fondness of them. She’s seen a photo of them on the wall at the back of the café. A blonde woman and dark-haired man, arm in arm, beaming into the camera. He’s holding on to the newspaper like the photo was a spur-of-the-moment decision. It makes her feel oddly choked up to learn this about them. To piece in little tidbits of information with her image of them. It seems fitting for them to have lived their love in coffee intervals and in small moments set aside for each other.

“That’s really sweet,” she says. She’s aware of just how insufficient these words are but lacks any better way of expressing herself or the feeling in her chest like her heart was swelling up to twice its size.

“Yes.” Kara smiles a little. It’s a smile Lena has rarely seen on her face before. It’s nostalgic and a little bit sad, though no less genuine. It feels intimate, somehow, to be on the receiving end of this smile. A smile with the curtains pulled back.

“Eliza held on to it even after Jeremiah passed away. I think it made her feel closer to him, like she was still sharing her morning coffee with him. But when I said I was going to open a café, she wanted me to have it. She said that every cup of coffee made with this machine would be made with love and that I couldn’t go wrong if that was the foundation for my business.”

Kara has been tracing the engraving absentmindedly with her index finger and now takes the piece and carefully places it back in the machine, gently, as if returning it home. Lena can’t remember ever touching something with that kind of diligence. Not even the machines she used to build before she took over the family company and from then on lacked the time to build much of anything. The company she took over out of a sense of duty towards the world and no small amount of dread and trepidation. The company she still hasn’t learned to love.

She thinks about her mother at the dinner table again, acting like owning a café was some lesser feat, like it paled in comparison to the questionable notion of Luthor glory. But it’s no small feat to build something for yourself. And it’s a true testament to Kara that she chose to approach it with love.

“I think she was right,” she manages eventually. She sounds a little choked up and to be honest, too much time has passed between Lena’s reply and Kara’s story to make it sound entirely relevant. Kara doesn’t seem to mind though, because she nods and smiles like she understands exactly how Lena is feeling right now. (She probably does.)

Kara takes another component and tries to reinsert it in the machine. This one, however, appears to get jammed and only takes its position again once Kara forcefully, and loudly, wrestles it in again. The loud screeching sound of metal cuts through the heaviness of the moment and Kara winces and turns to Lena. “It is a pain to clean though.”

Lena laughs a little as she watches Kara restore the machine. Her ponytail has already become slightly disheveled and she blows away a stray strand of hair from her face before turning to Lena.

“So…”

“Yes?”

“About that quirky roommate.”

And Lena laughs.

* * *

A day later, she’s back at the mansion again. A maid sees her through to the drawing room and leaves her there to wait. She paces the room for a moment, considering the best vantage point for the altercation ahead. She dimly thinks that a conversation with her mother shouldn’t be preceded by battle strategies, but she still refuses to sit down and allow her any form of leverage and instead goes to stand by the fireplace, where she crosses and uncrosses her arms multiple times until she settles on keeping them crossed.

A ray of sunlight slices through the window and lands on the carpet in front of her like a knife dropping by her feet. There is an old grandfather clock ticking in the foyer, the pendulum swinging from side to side to mark the passage of time. The sound is eventually joined by the familiar clicking of her mother’s heel on the marble flooring and exactly fifteen seconds later, the door to the drawing room swings open and Lillian steps inside, looking unbearably put together considering Lena showed up here unannounced on a Saturday morning.

“Lena,” she says instead of a greeting, “seeing you twice in as many days, to what do I owe this unexpected visit?”

Lena unconsciously straightens her back and squares her shoulders. “You know why I’m here, mother.”

Lillian raises an eyebrow. “I have no idea, but since you’re normally so loath to visit I assume hell must have frozen over.” She gestures at the sofas and frowns when Lena shakes her head and remains standing.

“I’m here to talk about last night.”

“Oh, have you come to your senses?” Lillian asks, barely acknowledging her while pouring herself a glass of water.

“Excuse me?”

“Well you cannot seriously be dating that girl, Lena.” The derivative _that girl_ physically grates on her so much that she feels her stomach grow hot with anger.

“Coincidentally this absolutely atrocious attitude towards anyone without an eight-number bank account is exactly what I wanted to talk about.”

“I apologize that you felt upset, but even you must understand that I was a bit surprised by your choice of partner. I was merely hoping you’d date someone a little more advantageous or befitting of your position.”

An almost hysterical laugh escapes her. “My position?”

“Whether you like it or not, you are part of the Luthor family as well as leading one of the world’s major tech companies, you must be aware of how this looks.”

“Oh yes, isn’t it just outrageous for the heir of LuthorCorp to date a coffee shop owner. The scandal might just ruin the company image, oh no wait – it might actually be the fact that the previous CEO tried to kill millions of people with their tech. But between the two, I can see how it would be a toss-up as to which would ruin the family’s good looks.”

She watches Lillian’s eyes darken as they always do at any mention of Lex. They grow stone-like and impenetrable; Lena can feel the atmosphere in the room physically shift.

“I was merely looking out for you, Lena,” Lillian says, voice cold and smooth, devoid of any kind of emotion. “By all means, date whomever you like.”

Silence hangs in the air for a moment, the ticking of the clock the only sound penetrating it. “Is that all?” Lillian asks.

“No,” Lena says. “As per your request, I will be bringing Kara to dinner from now on. You don’t have to like her, but I won’t tolerate any more hostility towards my girlfriend over dinner.” Lena almost chokes on the term _girlfriend_ but manages to barrel on. “There won’t be any more snide remarks or comments about her intelligence or decisions. Kara is a smart, capable and kind-hearted soul. She runs her café with more integrity and care than I could ever hope for and I am lucky that she’s as much as giving me the time of day, so I will not listen to you insult her.”

“My, my,” Lillian scoffs, “a very passionate speech. Feelings must run deep.”

“I’m serious, mother.” Lena steps closer a little at that, eyes glinting dangerously. Lillian takes a half step back and Lena delights in it. “Kara is off the tables. If you cannot uphold a pretense of kindness towards her for the time it takes us to eat a three-course dinner, we simply won’t show up anymore.”

“As noble as this ultimatum might be, we do have an agreement, Lena.”

Lena looks at her darkly. “Try and run the company yourself then.”

Lillian laughs. “Even you wouldn’t be foolish enough to throw away the family company over some girl you picked up in the country-side.”

“Try me,” Lena says, tone more cutting than it’s ever been. And with one last dark look at her mother, she walks out of the drawing room, allowing the door to fall shut behind her.

* * *

“No, yellow roses are out of the question for the center piece. I know Abigail thinks they are ever so charming, but I refuse to present something that screams unrefined and pedestrian quite so much,” Kara and Lena hear Lillian say as they approach the drawing room. Her voice carries through the foyer and once they reach the drawing room, they find her standing with her back to them, speaking rather emphatically with someone on the phone about… flower arrangements?

“I know, frankly the mere idea of including yellow in a sylvan theme is preposterous,” she says and Lena finds it hard not to wonder whether these are early signs of madness. Whether this is finally the point where her mother will follow the tradition of Luthors slowly descending into lunacy. You what they say: Not with a bang but with a yellow rose arrangement.

It’s in that moment that Lillian turns around and notices them standing in the doorway. Her eyes narrow ever so much, then dart over to the clock. She sighs visibly, looking thoroughly inconvenienced by their punctuality.

“Oh, don’t mind us,” Lena says quickly, “this sounds much more thrilling, should we–” she points back to the door.

Lillian sighs again, more loudly now. “No, Jacqueline, this was not addressed at you. I will have to call you back though, my daughter has just arrived.” She hangs up the phone, puts it on the sill of the fireplace and then turns back to Kara and Lena. Her eyes linger on Kara for a moment in a way that clearly signals her severe distaste and disappointment at her presence. Lena’s mouth grows firm at it.

“Good evening, Mrs. Luthor,” Kara says, polite as ever. Lillian just looks like she insulted her and gestures towards the sofas, already moving over to the drinks cart herself.

“So, do you have a new-found passion for horticulture I didn’t know about?” Lena asks, as they are moving to their designated seats.

“Jacqueline and I were discussing the center pieces for the DAR’s annual fundraiser for the children’s hospital.” Lillian says it casually, but Lena’s head still whips up immediately. She thinks that if this were a TV show, she’d already have her drink in hand and spit it all over the very expensive carpet. Her mother is a member of the DAR – a society that essentially only exists as a playground for rich wives, who are so bored with their lives that they hold weekly meetings to discuss whatever new gossip they found, sip cocktails under dainty, little parasols, and complain about their husbands, all under the pretense of planning fundraisers and charity events. And apparently her mother is a member.

Lena sits on the sofa, absolutely incapable of choosing from the plethora of comebacks this information offers her and so she falls back on simply asking, “the DAR?”

“Yes, the Daughters of the American Revolution.”

“Oh, I’m aware of what it stands for. I just didn’t realize you were such an active, flower-wielding member.”

Lillian turns with a sigh and hands them their drinks, before taking a seat on the sofa opposite theirs. “It’s a recent membership, though they’ve been pestering me to join for years.” 

“How recent are we talking?”

“I joined this week.”

“You joined the DAR this week?”

“Yes,” Lillian sighs. “Would you please enlighten me as to why that is so incredible to you?”

“Oh no reason.” Lena shakes her head. “I can really see how your interests in nano technology, weaponry and tax evasion would make you a good fit for what is essentially a glorified rich-wife tea society.”

Lillian leans back against the sofa and takes a long and rather passive-aggressive sip of her drink. “I don’t know what you’d like to hear, Lena,” she says. “The DAR is a very respectable organization. Your grandmother was a member and contributed in no small part to upholding the family’s reputation.” It is precisely in this moment that Lena realizes where this conversation is headed and wonders how she could have ever been so foolish to walk right into it when Lillian continues, “I hadn’t yet considered joining myself, but somebody has to care about the family’s social standing.”

And here they are again. She didn’t really think flowers and tea societies would have been used to segue into discussing her societal shortcomings, but really that’s on her.

“Well, I am ever so grateful that you have taken this heavy burden upon yourself and will restore the family’s name to its former glory one yellow rose at a time,” Lena replies, taking her turn in sipping her drink passive-aggressively.

“I know that this is all just a joke to you and that you fail to see how something as simple as flowers can be very suggestive of social standing.” Lillian gives her a long, pointed look and then, almost on accident, lets her eyes fall on Kara for a moment before they return to her. “But there are certain rules, regulations and responsibilities that come with being a member of this family and yellow roses simply do not fit,” she punctuates this with another pointed look at Kara. 

“Well that’s certainly a snazzy slogan. Is a fondness of alliteration also part of the aforementioned regulations or is that up to the individual’s artistic liberty?” Lena bites back.

“You’re being very tiresome tonight, Lena.”

“No, I simply refuse to enter this argument with you again or frankly to care about how the color of roses will affect my social standing.”

“Well how do you feel about it, Kara,” Lillian asks, now turning to face Kara who’s been watching this exchange like a tennis match. “You’ve been awfully quiet tonight.”

Kara looks at her, then to Lena, then down at her drink. “I think yellow roses are beautiful,” she says quietly. Lillian flashes Lena a triumphant look like this somehow wins her the argument. Kara, however, continues, “but because they are hybrid flowers, they also used to be quite the status symbol and were even used as payment in the 17th century, so I think they could probably still suit the fundraiser, especially because they universally signify happiness, which can’t be wrong for a charity event, right?” Her voice is still quiet but assured and Lena watches in amazement as Lillian’s expression turns sour at Kara’s unexpected knowledge regarding 17th century floristry and power structures. Lena half expects Lillian to argue with her, to tell her that no, of course happiness has no part in charity events. But she remains silent and Lena suppresses a smile at the sheer power that Kara Danvers wields, doing the impossible in winning an argument against her mother.

“Well, isn’t that interesting,” Lillian says and takes the last swig of her drink.

The maid steps inside right then and announces that dinner is ready and so they all get up and move over into the dining room.

As they follow Lillian, Lena quickly leans over to Kara and whispers, “so do _you_ have a secret interest in horticulture I wasn’t aware about?”

And Kara leans back and whispers just as quietly, “I googled it under the sofa cushion while you two were fighting.”

The snort of laughter that escapes Lena at this is nothing short of undignified and Lillian turns around to give her a disapproving look at it that Lena can’t bring herself to care about.

They take their seats at the table and sit in silence for a moment. Lena glances over at Kara, then her mother. She isn’t sure whether her mother will start again, whether she will find yet another impossible tangent to go on about, and whether she will actually have to walk out on these dinners and her company, but then Lillian turns to her.

“I think we should discuss your recent investment strategy.”

And Lena exhales. Business she can do.

* * *

When the door falls shut behind them this time, Kara turns to her immediately and grins.

“So, I think that passive-aggressive flower-talk aside, this went quite well.”

Lena almost laughs at how eager she looks. “I’m certainly glad to see that you’ve finally lowered your standards for dinners with my mother.”

Kara just laughs and links her arm with Lena’s as she starts walking towards the car.

“You know what?” Kara asks. “I think we’ll be just fine.”

And Lena looks at her, feels her gentle touch on her arm and thinks that they just might be.

* * *

On Monday, the door to her office opens around midday and Jess steps inside, carrying a large bouquet of yellow roses, which she places down on Lena’s desk.

“These arrived for you.”

Their sweet scent wafts through the office and Lena leans in a little closer to inhale it. The flowers have a little tag attached to it with brown string. It reads, _Some pedestrian flowers for the best fake date ever._

And Lena laughs so loudly and unexpectedly that Jess jumps a little and looks at her in utter confusion. Now, Lena really doesn’t have the time to reflect upon how sad it is that her secretary, who sees her the most out of everyone in the world, is so utterly confused by any show of happiness on her part. Instead, she smiles and waves her off.

She then places the flowers in a vase on her desk, where they remain all week, even when they start to wilt. And all week, she smiles every time she looks at them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Valentine's Day! Please take this chapter as a token of my love for all of you for supporting and reading this story! I rlly hope you liked this chapter! 
> 
> PS Thanks as ever to Wendy for the help!!


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